Language & Grammar discussion

I thought I would make my own little niche. So come join me for conversation and whatever else you want.

Right now we are in the process of trying to find a gardener to help put in a new lawn. We are trying to decide if we want to do sod or grass seed. I had to remove my rose bushes so we want to put in drought resistant plants. Some areas are going to need plants that are shade, and other areas will need plants in the full sun.

We are also having to replace broken windows. I was trying to open the window and the lock was stuck . I took a hammer . don't do it. I opened the window alright. all the way. hahahahahahaha

I wondered how long it would take you to feel enough at home here to set up your own space! As for gardening advice.....you can't go past Kerry Carman....look for her 'The Creative Gardener' on Amazon or the like........

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

Thanks I will look into that . I think I will ask my daughter for book for my birthday. She asked me what I wanted.

We just spent 2 hours at home depot getting ideas. We were advised to use weed killer to kill all the roots then till the soil with fertilizer after raking all dead refuse up. Then lay sod down. Voila new lawn after 5o years.

I was embarrassed to start my own korner Debbie, but I got brave and went for it.

Is it arid in New Zealand ? We live in a semi- desert area, so we need to go back to natural plants native to where we live.

The book is not available in the US Debbie.

Some parts of NZ are close to arid.....we really have a bit of everything here! A shame the book is not available there....I thought for sure it would be available second-hand online!

Try this....

http://www.sella.co.nz/general/books/...

No it has to come from Australia or New Zealand. Shipping is as much as the book. I will have to find an alternative.

Well Carol, sounds like a cactus garden would be just up your alley!
No fuss....no muss!

Hi Kitty! Kutting Korners here?

They suggested tall fescue. It is dense but not matted. We have to put gypsum in the soil also. Alas Gabi Queenie is totally gone. We tried to save a portion but was not meant to be. I think we will replace it with a double delight. It is considerable smaller. Gabi this is the front lawn. In the back we have this huge palm that we must get rid of. Ours is about three times as big around as this one.

Canary Island Palm





Double Delight Rose.




Susanne I really am not a fan of cacti. I do want some aloe vera though, and those little chicken succulents.

I used to love to garden before the ground got so far away. The Sunset Garden Book is the best book for Southern California. We have pretty special growing conditions and they vary widely depending on where you are.

Sunset breaks the whole area up into zones, having to do with aridity and high and low temps.

Carol, I live on Palm Drive here in South Georgia. I like it that there are palm trees in every yard on our street. I was just thinking that we have palm trees in common, even if we're on opposite sides of the country.

Palmetto... South Carolina's tree, no? And soft wood, I think. Absorbs cannonballs, I understand.

We have to. It would take a crane to lift it over the neighbors house and about $2000. Which we don't have. I just want it to get taller, so it will be above the phone wires. My grandmother planted it 4o years ago. It was about 12" high. We did not know it grew to 40' high. ha!

When my daughter-in-law first arrived in Cali. she had never seen a palm tree . She was so excited to see all kinds of palm trees everywhere. We were so use to them it was nothing special.

I know Ruth I will look at work or go on line to Sunset mag. Lately the magazine seems to be full of advertisements. I will look at Home Depot today for a book . I think there is a comprehensive gardening book.

I used to have some in another house. Tree ferns get very very big. Bromeliads are a thought. They are pretty when they bloom.

Enough Flora. Call in Fauna.

I do wish I had elves to do the work. It is just me and the big elf(hubby) hahahahah

I just learned that goodreads may be blocked in China. Some one in goodreads feedback thought maybe it was. They had to use a proxy to get through. Has any one heard from Robin?

I'll check with her direct....she hasn't been here for a while come to think of it.....

I don't know if it is true or not. The person had to set up a proxy to get through.

Blockheads.

I was telling my husband Saudi Arabia was blocking text messages from Blackberry phones. Stupid idea. Makes it all the more appealing. Guess no one has heard you can't stop the herd once it gets started.

Or so I've herd.

But you can "buffalo" them....

A Buffalo shuffles on to Buffalo to buffalo the buffalo's in Buffalo,but couldn't buffalo a herd so I have heard. So he stayed for dinner.

Yes he was the dinner. Ha. I borrowed the premise from another group. I wanted to see how many buffalo I could get in a sentence. How are you doing?

You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd.

I found out tonight that a dear customer of mine passed away. I know the family is grieving. The family I suppose did not know how close I was to her. I have many fond memories over the last 25 years.

She told me stories of her youth in Germany prior to WWII and the aftermath.
She shared the pain of her older brother's suicide, she never told her children about it. I called her every week to see how she was. The kids didn't want her to have visitors.

The last time I talked to her personally was 10 days ago. I asked her if she needed me , she said she would call. I told her I loved her and she told me she loved me. I will miss her tremendously.

My condolences, Carol. It's incredibly hard to lose a friend of such long standing. But it's very good that you were able to talk a little before the end and tell each other how you felt.

Yes it was and thank you. I just needed to cry a little. I am fine now. We finally have some hot weather here. I think it was 91 where I live. Tonight the ocean breeze has kicked up so it is pleasant outside.

Take it easy. Try to unwind. A loss like that can be a shock to your system.

My husband will be home soon. Thank you for your caring concern, but I am doing ok. It helped to share. What arer you up to these days? Anything fantastic?

Fantastic, no; interesting, yes. I've just finished writing an article on the Spanish modernist Joan Miró and his 1928 trip to Amsterdam, after which he did a series of abstract works loosely based on the 17th-century Dutch masters. There will be a small show of these pictures here in New York in October.

Is the article on line so I can read it? I am always interested in your work and observations.

It will be published in the October issue of Art & Antiques. They'll put it on line at some point but not while the print version is on the newsstand. I'll give you a link when I can. In general I archive everything I write on my website:

http://www.jonathanlopez.net/article_...

Good writing. Thanks . I want to read 'Displaced Persons' and a couple of others. Priceless sounds very interesting.

Jonathan is there a time frame for In The Light Of God. I am very interested in it.

Sorry about your friend, Carol.

Glad you liked some of the articles in the archive, Carol. In the Light of God is a long-term project, whose time frame keeps getting longer as I do more research and rethink my assumptions.

There's a Van Gogh biography coming out next fall by another author, so I would probably want to hold off publishing my book until 2013 or 2014 (which means completing the manuscript in 2012 or so). Also I want to make mine a different sort of book, one that deals more specifically with Van Gogh's intense and sometimes troubled relationship to Christianity and the way this affected his art.

I thought I had read he wanted at one time to be a minister, am I wrong? It would still be an interesting subject.

His father and grandfather were ministers, and he wanted to follow in their footsteps. But he was emotionally troubled and unable to complete his training.

He served for a time as an Evangelical missionary. That went quite badly for a variety of reasons. Ultimately he was deemed "overzealous" by his supervisors and dismissed.

Turning to art, he threw the full weight of his religious zeal into painting--he had a complex rationale for this--and continued to immerse himself in the Bible. His letters to his brother Theo are filled with thousands of biblical references.

Poor Van Gogh. He wanted so desparately to do good and have people love him, but he invariably did the wrong thing.

I had never equated his painting as religious zealotry. I learned something already. Thanks for taking the time to explain a little to me.

I have been online all morning looking for two plants to put in front side of the garage.I think I have decided on rose trees
Here they are. Now I just have to chose two


Moonstone tree rose



Double Delight tree rose



Iceberg tree rose



Marilyn Monroe tree rose

I like Moonstone and Marilyn.

I really like Moonstone also and the Double Delight smells heavenly but Marilyn is beautiful.

White Roses are nice also. We have have aloes that can pretty much grow anywhere, also ti leaves grow rampant here.