| Sharon, you have lots more O plants than I have! I just have misc O’s this year to post...as the new perennial purchases I have, that start with O, didn’t bloom in 2008. At the end of January 2009 my DH and I went on a road trip down to Arizona and swung up thru California and up the west coast of the US to British Columbia and then drove across the prairies to our home in Manitoba. We travelled almost 8800 km...and we are still talking to each other!! When we were in Mesa, Arizona we took a drive one day to visit the Desert Botanical Gardens. Here are a few cactus that start with O that we saw. They had all the cactus labelled, so I took a picture of the cactus and then a picture of the name of the cactus. I was just about tired of looking at cactus by the time we left there, 3 hours later. I know my DH was. The Octopus Cactus 
One of their Old Man of the Andes Cactus. 
The Organ Cactus 
My DH spent some time golfing at some beautiful golf courses. Here is a picture of the Orange trees along the drive at the Arizona Grand Golf Course in Phoenix, Arizona. 
And a close up of the Oranges. Don’t these look good!!! 
As we drove up the California coast on highway 101 we came across a sign for the Gallup and Stribling Orchid Farm, just south of Santa Barbara. So, we stopped in. Their web site says that they have more than 1.5 million square feet of greenhouse space for their orchids. Wow!! http://www.americanorchids.com/farms.html They are apparently the USA’s largest orchid growers. Here are just a few pictures I took in their visitor’s showroom.... 
As we travelled north of California we drove thru Oregon. It was lightly raining that day. Here are two pictures of the Oregon coastline... The first is a typical view of the ocean and the second is a typical view of the highway, with the ocean on the left and a winding highway to drive on ahead of us, with lots of mountains, little towns and agricultural land to drive thru. 
When we got to BC, my husband’s brother and sister in law took us to the Granville Island Public Market in Vancouver. http://www.granvilleisland.com/en/home Here are some orchid magnets that were made from clay that were for sale there. I really liked them so I brought a few back with me.
 That’s it for the O’s for this year... Brenda | 
