For decades I've worked in horticulture and landscape design. I wasn't very good at running a business profitably, and I got too old and creaky to work hard, but I still love gardening. I'm also a jewelry maker, but I know better than to expect to make a living selling craft work.

Most of all, I've always longed to be a writer. I let the chores of keeping up with life hold me back. Through a weird twist of fate a bad event has turned out to be an opportunity to spend time doing what I love. I'm living with the consequences of a botched hip replacement operation that left me with nerve damage, and largely unable to drive.

What can I do now that I spend most of my time sitting home alone? Well, I can't really garden, but I can write about it; I can make jewelry and try to sell it and I can write! Best of all I can enjoy my grandkids.

In addition to Helium, my work appears on Associated Content, and my oft-neglected blog under my pen name Plntpolice:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/50542/plntpolice.html
http://plntpolice.wordpress.com/

When life hands you a rotten tomato, save it, cause someone you'd like to throw it at will come along soon.

Home & Garden > Perennials Growing hydrangea

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Can your garden use a high quality flowering vine, but you think shade limits your choices? Good news! You can have it all: the climbing Hydrangea (Hydrangea anomala subspecies petiolaris) is widely considered by garden experts to be the finest woody climbing vine and it brings to your garden just about every feature you desire.

The leaves are clean and crisp, dark green, and rarely bothered by insect or disease problems. In early summer large creamy white flowers with a sweet aroma cover the plant. Fall turns the leaves yellow, and when they drop, the woody branches take center stage wit...

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