Thank you for the links, they look great. In answer to Mary - I have mine growing up an arbor and I have bent the canes over the arbor. Are there thorns? Yes indeed and very large. The beauty of the flowers should make up for the thorns which I despise. Mine only gets half day sun and is beautiful. Ginny

John and Agatha, Now that I have managed to scrape my jaw off the ground, and sit comfortably at the puter, I can thank you for sharing all 3 glorious postings of your recent trip to paradise. Is Andrew Maloy partnered? Heterosexual? .......hmmm.... oh that's right, I have a partner.....sorry my dear. Autumn Blaze, with Pacific Blush, is now equal first on my lust list. All of Maloy's hybrids are magnificent. Your haul looks pretty spectacular as well - mind me asking how much all up? And why only eight plants? I suppose you already have so many broms in your collection, but with that type of temptation, readily accessible or not, I could not help myself from buying as many as possible! But then the family must eat. Do you know if Andrew Maloy or Peter Coyle is going to register the Pacific series? When I looked into the cultivar database on the BSI website for Maloy's hybrids, I saw that the Kiwi series was hybridised by N. Scotting, and named* by A. Maloy. Then for the Tasman series, the hybridiser is listed as A. Maloy "et al" (Scotting?), and naming by P. Coyle.* Does Maloy do the actual crossing, and grow the seedlings, or does he pass on the seed to Peter Coyle for him to grow the seedlings, and also name them? I'm a bit confused, as I thought if a brom was included in the cultivar registry database, with acknowledgement of hybridiser, and parentage included if known (of course, preferable), then that was evidence of registration. Yet the Kiwi series, under the 'registered' category, says NO, but they DO have registration numbers - can someone fill me in? I owe Uncle Derek an email, so I should ask him. Nitty-gritty aside, thanks again John and Agatha for the magnificent postings. Cheers, Kerry

Moe loves it when I make Cassoulet. I've made the following recipe a few times, but as always each time I make it I make a few adjustments or substitutions. Works great with lamb shanks and I always add Duck Confit. Cassoulet ========= Use this recipe as a guideline. Http://www.ffcook.com/pages/Wrecipearch47.htm Cassoulet is the most famous dish from South west France. Cassoulet can be translated as "bean pot stew" or "white bean stew" or "meat and bean casserole". Origin of cassoulet is not very clear some historian say it is an Arab dish, some other says it was created in Castelnaudary during the Hundred Years' war (14-15th Century). In France, there are as many cassoulet recipes as cook but for all recipes there are some basic rules to follow : A good cassoulet has to include 70% of haricot beans, juice and aromates and 30% of meat and you have to keep in mind that it is a simmered dish. There are 3 famous recipes: Cassoulet de Castelnaudary, is made up with pork meat. Cassoulet de Toulouse, is more rich than the Castelnaudary recipe as you add In particular lamb and sausages. Cassoulet de Carcassonne : is also made up with partridge. Contrary to what some people think, cassoulet is good for health and relatively light, 700 to 800 kcal for one platter. However cassoulet is rather a winter dish and when you serve one, consider it is a complete meal so do not plan more than a salad and a light dessert or fruit with it. Ingredients for 8 persons : 600 gr [1.3 lbs] white kidney beans (haricot beans) / 800 gr [1.8 lbs] bacon / 1 kg [2.2 lbs] pork meat (loin, knuckle�) / 1 kg [2.2 lbs] lamb meat / 8 pieces of preserved goose / 1 Toulouse sausage / 1 pork rind / 400 gr [14 oz] tomatoes / 200 gr [7 oz] carrots / 7 onions / 10 garlic cloves / 5 cl [2 fl oz] olive oil / 1 bouquet garni (bunch of aromatic herbs) / 3 cloves / thyme / salt & pepper Soak the beans into water during 1 night then rinse them generously. Cover the bottom of a large casserole with the pork rind and display the beans on it. Add the bacon, the pealed onions pricked with the cloves, the bouquet garni, 3 crushed garlic cloves, the pealed and cut (into 8 pieces) carrots. Season with salt & pepper, cover with water ; put a lid and simmer for 2 hours. During this simmering, fry the pork and lamb pieces in oil. Add 4 pealed and minced onions and 2 pealed and minced garlic cloves. Spread with thyme then Add the tomatoes cut into pieces. Season with salt & pepper, then add 5 cl / 2 fl oz water, cover and let simmer for 1 hour. Right before the beans are cooked, take out the bouquet garni, the onions and the pork rind. Cut the rind into small cubes then put them back with the beans, together with the sausage and the preserved goose. Add the meats with all the cooking juice and other ingredients. Gently mix and simmer for another 20 minutes. This must be served very hot but can be re-heated.

beng - yeah, I TOTALLY do not consider the Larix 100% reliable trees. In fact one I planted in a spot that gets the water from a gutter drain thinking, "surely this will be a goner, but this thing was cheap and I'm just experimenting". Well, it is now > 25' tall and I think if it can survive this hellish summer it can survive anything. That area cycled back and forth from bone dry to swamped with water. I can't remember where I got them that was a cheap source...oh wait I do...I think maybe the Dunkelds came from Musser Forest and the supposed pure kaempferis from the VA state tree nursery. Well, there must have been 5 of the latter and 8 of the former...and here I am left with 2. All the Dunkelds died w/in 3 years...they were absolutely crazy, a couple grew from 1' to 6' in a season! But then they could died of root rot practically overnight. So maybe I really have selected ones with better rot resistance. Hopefully. But I'm planning for the worse. The other, scarecrow one, for example, is shading some prized rhododendrons like 'Sky King', but I'm going to plant a 'back up' of a Taxodium ascendens nearby. NO worry about that dying of root rot! Besides deciduous conifers just make great garden trees, period, I've decided. Because the needles are such a non-event when they fall and they are clearly so storm resistant. BTW this scene of your garden is idyllic. The longleaf pine is far from home in the mountains of MD, but looks happy enough! Gardengal...not a huge fan of pink, myself, since it is kind of the 'lowest state of entropy' in flowering plants...BUT...there just aren't many plants that bloom the way Nerine/Amarines do, right up to the first freezes. It really gives a nice effect when the only other thing seen in 'regular gardens' are mums. Here at least, any Lycoris or Rhodophiala I've tried is much earlier. In the PNW, I would definitely try to get my hands on an 'Afterglow', which is a clear red N. bowdenii X sarniensis hybrid. Alas I 1) don't believe it would be hardy here, and 2) the one time I tried to order this from Cistus, it was the wrong color! It was a smoky pink, making me think it was another cross from that grex along the lines of 'Oberon'. Sean admitted to me there could have been a mix-up of some kind. In any case it tried to grow too much in the winter and died in the PVs. Which my plain bowdeniis survived only to be taken out by the slightly less cold but lacking snow cover PV3. (as I mentioned there was also the extenuating circumstances of have disturbed a plant known not to like disturbance LOL) I have a pure sarniensis that should be red, but it's proving incredibly hard to get it to bloom in a pot around here, which is not entirely unexpected. Summers probably too wet or something. I'm going to repot it in grit this year (possibly today) to try to 'reset' it. I bought it of course to try my hand at recreating the hybrids of Peter Smithers and Terry Jones, it would never be hardy here and is a challenge even in the PNW. Apparently a small # of such offspring inherit the ability to grow in summer from bowdenii, and thus have a chance of hardiness in ideal circumstances. Because they were bred for the cut flower market, I will say that these hybrid Amarines are lasting longer in the garden than Amaryllis belladonna or Nerine bowdenii. The petals just sit there for days and days, seemingly waiting for something LOL. (and btw, they do grow in summer here; my hardiest Amaryllis of all is 'willing' to stay green until well INTO summer, which is probably a reason it is still alive after almost 10 years. That might be the trait I actually selected for. Where winters are a little too cold for these South Africans, they need to store carbohydrates in the summer instead. That was the tragedy of the Brunsvigia grandiflora I tried to grow. When I dug it up after 5 years in a pot and almost 10 in the garden...I was expecting a huge bulb. Nope. It was barely the size of a large gum ball! I realized it could simply never get to flowering size around here and tossed it! No point being sentimental. Now I am trying 10 seedlings to screen for strong summer growing...but it's not looking good. They might have all been collected in a very mild area. I often think, around the world, a lot of people doing seed collection DO NOT want to climb into the coldest mountain areas LOL) Oh well gotta get going...already moved the most tender stuff into my garage, today's the day to do about 1/3 more of it...I'll let hardier stuff ride out one more mild spell we are supposed to have and then do the rest of the around Thanksgiving. On top of my ca. 250 potted plants, had to place an emergency "last call" order from Joy Creek, of course!