@Genderqueerwolf ooh yes any suggestions very welcome (if you have time/energy! we might have european alternatives and/or they might be happy/naturalised here too.we're back into way too warm days again after a bit of a respite ... it's hardly rained for months either, so i suspect we'll have restrictions in place before too long as well. i'm definitely looking at plants that don't mind dryness (especially given we're south facing with full sun). unfortunately, it all worsened my regularly dislocating thumb and fragile wrists/shoulders, which is not ideal given my day job involves intensive hand use. and i'm allergic to my own sweat, sigh, so i'm still covered in eczema. but at least i can sit down now without crying (that took 5 days). so, small mercies! 😂 (i really, really need medical care, but although i have a list of diagnoses a mile long, i live in france 🙄)i hope you stay warm enough and that you're feeling ok. hooray for the sand cherries! (our dwarf cherry that we planted last year has its first few actual cherries coming 🥹. the nanking cherry got the weird, dead tips again that it had last year, but we've pruned those off and it looks ok otherwise ... lots of wee cherries there too, so hopefully they'll mature ...)🍒!