On 7 Jun 2009, at 10:15, Jane McGary wrote: > Diane's new project reminds me of a very effective feature the late Molly > Grothaus had in her garden, made entirely of flue tiles stacked up in tiers > against a slight slope. I once heard Molly Grothaus talk about her flue-tile garden. One of the more subtle features was a flowering tree of some sort at one end of it. This gave summer shade, the amount of shade varying from lots close to the tree and not very much at all at the other end of the array of tiles. Molly was very fond of fritillarias, and grew many species. By her own account, when she lifted the frit bulbs in the summer, if they were looking a bit on the shrivelled side, she'd move them a tile or two closer to the shade tree where the soil would be slightly cooler. In this way, she was able to adjust conditions quite delicately to suit each species. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island http://maps.google.ca/maps/…