Plu perfect

The drawback to the two giant plumerias we got from Cheryl and her mom a few years back -- they were so big the two of them couldn't wrestle them into the house for the winter anymore, and now they're at least 6 feet tall and just as wide -- is that big branches tend to break off.

But there's a fine upside, too: Branches on a plant that mature will root, leaf and bloom almost instantly after you stick 'em into some dirt.

Thus this offspring of Ethel (Lucy is the red one) is now blooming happily next to the elephant ears at the summer house.

The dell in the distance, for those of you who haven't been here, holds the bench at the south end of the shuffleboard court, under the sweet bays, and that spot of russet farther back is a dwarf Japanese maple outside the living room.

With the magnolias, sweet bays, gardenias and now plumerias putting on a show, I don't know who's happier: the bees or my nose.