When I was in Portland in summer 1970, there was the Centennary plant blooming right next to the fish pond in our commune court yard.

So the humming birds came next. I never saw anything like that, although those in North West are not so colorfull than in Amazon, but to fly like that! And all alive, not seen from TV!

Good morning. That's a very lovely image, one that certainly reminds me of the hours I spent sitting as still as possible with my camera narrowly focused on a piece of sky and some fuschia blossoms waiting for her arrival.

I'll miss my plants. It's not that they're not allowed but the distance is too great to keep them alive. What I will take is clippings from a salmon coloured Christmas cactus - the original of which is 40 years old and shared by my mother and I. Life teaches us about continuance.

Ripsa, so, I gather there are no hummingbirds in Finland. No wonder you were excited. I'm always thrilled to see this pair in our garden every summer. They love the red flowers such as the fuschias, bee balm, red crocosmia and the red ivy geranium next to the window that I just wrote about. As you can see, I like red myself.

Susan, I've tried but not had the patience to spend hours trying to catch a photo of the amazing hummingbirds. As for your plants on moving, I really empathize. I've got a huge number and many are very large so dread the day I'd have to leave them behind. When we moved to Vancouver from northern BC (a chilly November many years ago) our plants travelled in various cars and a trailer rather than in the movers van. We built a cardboard coffin shaped box for the big monstera to lie down in and travel down in my in-laws van! I still have its descendant. Perhaps you could take lots of cuttings of your collection since you are traveling across the entire continent.

Nice! Very "japonesy" isn't it?

R, "japonesy" sounds good, thanks! (Is it a real word?)