Survival of the fittest...

I wish now I had chronicled earlier, but that's how it goes.  It turns out that there is an inverse relationship between how much money I spent in the Year of the Shrub vs. their survival rates over the Extended All You Can Eat Salad Bar, I mean, winter, of 2008-2009.

Here's the $65 clethra I got at the expensive nursery:

Here's the new $45 clethra I got this year from the only-medium-expensive nursery to try again.  Because I do want clethra.

Here's one of several leucoethe from the medium-expensive nursery:

And here's one of several soft-leaf holly from the medium-expensive nursery (I thought holly was poisonous, for crying out loud!!!):

Here's a sampling of the rhododendron:

 Now, the careful (and optimistic) observer will note that many -- indeed, most -- of these Shrubs are, in the immortal words of Monty Python, not quite dead yet...  And that is, indeed, the position I'm taking.   For now, at least.

It also turns out that Blogspot has revised its upload parameters such that I can no longer put 120 photos on one post.  So now I'll do the another, with cheaper Shrubs that fared somewhat better.  It will, unfortunately, come out so that it will be read *first* because that too is how blogspot works.  So it goes.