I'm sure you've been on the edges of your various seats wondering how the plant situation at the new Rancho worked out. Did Rozan actually, um, steal those plants from the old house? you ask one another in hushed tones.

Yes, and no.

I ran off with them, but with the blessing of the new owner. I saw him at the Memorial Day parade and offered to go over and tell him about his trees. That property, small as it is, has three rare, or at least odd, specimen trees that need some looking after. The original owner -- the mother of the landlady who sold the place out from under us -- was a gardener and did some planting close to 100 years ago now, of peculiar things that people brought her from far places. There's a dwarf cherry from northern Japan, a beautiful feathery tree from Australia whose name I've forgotten, and something else large that flowers and then has cherry-like objects that aren't cherries but the birds love. That tree, whatever it is, is one of only two in town; it's the female, and the male is a mile farther east. The bees race busily back and forth between the two, and you wouldn't want to put bees out of business, would you?

So I went over and lectured him about those, and the huge oak, and the chestnut on the sidewalk, and the five different kinds of hydrangeas, and the three buddleia... by the time I was done his head was spinning. Then I said I knew it was weird but, since they probably weren't going to garden seeing as how they have three little kids and it would be all they could do to keep on top of the trees and shrubs, could I maybe take out some of the plants I'd put in? And he said, "Yes, yes! Can I help?"

So I went back with a spade and a big wide bucket, and, ignoring the suggestion of one of my housemates that I clonk him over the head with the spade (she's a little bitter) I ended up with: butterfly weed, columbine, filipendulum, two different huecheras, red yarrow, and some flat-leaved shade plant my friend Mel gave me, the name of which I never knew because he'd forgotten but it makes nice purple blossoms. I have yet to go dig up some tiger lilies and red Asian lilies, and the owner said he's going to move the fence so I could have the yellow lilies he's pulling up from the place he's moving it to. I put a bee balm there last year, so I'll take that too if it shows any signs of coming up, but last I looked it hadn't.

I schlepped all that stuff to the new Rancho, and planted it in the front near the white yarrow and purple flox that were alrady there and the nasturtiums and lantana I put in. I know that all sounds like a lot of stuff, but it's only one plant of each so really, it's thin. But it's a start. Give me five years here like I had at the old place and I could make something out of this.