I always wonder whether my Duchesse de Brabant, originally purchased from the Antique Rose Emporium sometime before 1990, is really a Madame Joseph Schwartz. Sometimes her blooms are pinkish, but more often they are white with just the slightest pink tinge.

Here are two new bamboo plants we just received last week from Tropical Bamboo in Florida. The first one, show at left, is a graceful weaver's bamboo, Bambusa textilis gracilis, and the second one is a Timor black bamboo, Bambusa lako.

I was most excited about getting the Timor black bamboo. When mature, it will have glossy black culms. The little one-year culms are already dark. The graceful weaver's bamboo, now that I see it, is even more enchanting. It is so graceful and lovely already!

I had been longing for more bamboo, since our one giant timber bamboo turned out so wonderful....

Our giant timber bamboo, Bambusa oldhamii, is six years old now, fifty feet tall,with culms that are 4.5 inches thick. It's the best thing I've ever planted. Click on the picture or "read more" to see a full-height picture of the entire bamboo!

Here's another picture of my Monstera deliciosa, whose leaves are now nearly three feet long. That's a yard stick in the picture. When Patsy McPherson told me to plant houseplants outside, it was the best gardening advice anyone ever gave me. They love this gulf coast climate!

Papayas are not my favorite fruit, but the papaya tree is lovely. Here's a picture of one of my young papaya trees in the rain. The pair of trees has just gotten taller than me and are almost up to six feet. Before they're done, they will certainly be taller than the house.

The seeds for these papayas were a very kind gift from a friend in Hawaii, who says that this type of papaya, 'Sunrise,' is much tastier than others. We planted the entire packet; some grew, many dyed young. Only this pair survives. They are very sturdy so we have high hopes that they will live to grow up.

I don't know what kind of mushroom this is. I photographed it in my front lawn, near the street, on September 28. It's amazingly delicate and lovely. The top is not meaty, like most mushroom caps; it looks as thin as a sheet of paper, curling up to let its spores go.

A new plant appeared suddenly by our front door about a month ago. It was rather attractive, with a splash of purple on its first leaves, so I gave it favored weed status and did not root it out. Then a bloom appeared whose pale violet fused petals and waxy yellow stamens (almost forming a tube around the pistil) made it look very much like a potato flower. The leaves weren't like a potato's, though; a potato has deeply divided leaves. Nightshade? Again very similar, but its petals curve back more than our mystery plant. Its hairs made me itch for hours after I touched it, though it lacked any obvious thorns....

My Philodendron selloum plants, which like the Monstera deliciosa are commonly known as split-leaf philodendrons, are nine or ten feet tall, with leaves about two feet long. We planted them out in a shady area as small inexpensive houseplants from Target in 1994. They're never really frozen back, though we live in zone 9a, perhaps because of the protective wooden fence at the north and west sides, and our house to the east. When they were small, we tossed blankets over them when a hard freeze was predicted, but that has obviously been impossible for many years now. If we ever get a freeze again, the plants will be damaged, but should grow back from their roots....

This Monstera deliciosa (also known as the Windowleaf, the Swiss Cheese plant or, ambiguously, as one of the Split Leaf Philodendrons) started out as a houseplant, tiny and inexpensive, but took only a couple of years to start producing leaves that are over two feet long....

"You planted bamboo in your yard! Doesn't it spread?"

No, not all bamboo tries to take over the entire block. There are two different types of bamboo, clumping and running. Clumping bamboo is safe....

Madame Isaac Periere has the most wonderful scent of any rose I've smelled, described in books as a true damask rose scent. The scent is much more delightful than the scent of a tea rose. The flowers are beautifully shaped and large. The only drawbacks to this plant are her disinclination to bloom much out of season....