Thank you all for looking! Sunnysa (Irene if I remember correctly?) I don't mind questions at all. The white orchid tree is Bauhinia forficata: Brazilian Orchid Tree. You don't see it much in nurseries, but maybe that will change with our climate getting warmer. Some sites rate it's hardiness to z. 11 and some to z. 9. When it was young I covered it with two quilts and wrapped the trunk during a hard freeze, Now I do nothing. It's also called the 'insulin tree' and the leaves are made into a tea for diabetes and other ailments. You can read about it online. The Madonna image on the columnar cactus passed along by Tally is natural, but my husband said I didn't take the picture at the best angle. I'm tempted to notch the head portion to look more like a silhouette. Should I? As for garden art I've had a lot of years to collect plus many have been gifts. Also I've been very fortunate in finding some things at garage sales in my own block. Recently a dear friend who is anticipating a move gave me some of the pieces pictured above for which I am very grateful. There are more that she gave me that I'll post about someday.

Yeah, it's about 8 years in, Chas. It mostly forms a bush with somewhat insignificant flowers. This one though has suffered a bit from the extended dry period, so I've pruned and shaped it. Foliage is quite attractive, and quite similar to H. flavescens, a NSW variety (Papilatus is a Qld variety), which I also have in. Tell you the truth it's not easy to tell the difference between them. I think the only difference really is the depth of colour in the foliage. They are both appealing. Mind you, I should add taxonomists may now have classed them as one and the same.

I remove virus on a daily basis here, I'm a trained expert. http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/ I have not seen this one you speak of. It was not Ransomware though or your files would have been encrypted. The latest Ransomware Wannacry is not only Ransomware but, a worm as well and a worm is designed to search all computers on the network and infect them too. If this is a new virus / malware you speak of I'll certainly see it soon.

I have no ideas. But when anything I can't explain happens to my haworthias, I dig it out for a once-over, just to make sure there isn't anything going on under the substrate. If there is nothing (and this has also happened once), I put it back in pumice and leave it alone. Two things can happen---the rosette will recover or the leaves will root separately. Note---get a magnifying glass when you examine the plant. Even if you do not see anything (pests or what-not), spray with alcohol all over before replanting.