The round tags that the "big guys" generally use represent licensing fees paid for propagation rights for exactly the number of tags purchased. In other words, if Certified Roses wants to grow and sell 1000 bushes of "Easy Does It," it pays the licensing fee for 1000 plants to Weeks (who owns the rights in the U.S), gets propagation materials for that quantity and 1000 tags indicating that the licensing fees were paid for each such newly propagated plant. Those round metal tags are how the "big guys" make sure they've been paid their licensing fees. Namely, if a plant they are due licensing fees on shows up in a market without those tags, the propagators can be tracked down and made to pay the fees. Kathy p.s. They were selling the tags in your link for $.99 at the 99 Cents Only stores, i.e. 50 tags for a buck, last year. I bought a whole bunch of packages of those, and that's what I use now.

this is my system. Neuter the flower by using scissors to cut just the open pollen casings(anther -- stamen). I do this by putting an envelope (I re-use the paper ones my bills come in- so I have plenty! :)) just below the pollen, covering the pistil to avoid dropping the pollen onto it. Record the flower name on the outside and place it in the door of the fridge. I would then select a donor pollen, use tweezers to remove pollen from the envelope and apply it to the pod parent (like all the highly scientific tools and terms?)usually several days in a row. As far as record keeping I cut plastic blinds (from the thrift store- 50 cents or so) into 2" lengths (easily done with scissors), punch a hole in them with a paper punch and label with a pencil (easily re-used by wetting and erasing with a regular pencil eraser). Pod parent first with pollen parent second (pod- "Novella X Picotee> -pollen). Use a twist tie to tie it just at the base of the flower close to the main stem. Rather unsightly for show but highly effective when pollinating all the flowers with different pollen. I could have 4 crosses on one scape all different donating parents and never lose track. About 5-6 weeks later when the pod is ripe I then cut the pod off with the label and again store it in a paper envelope. I test germinate 10 by planting in seed starter mix and newspaper tubes under lights. Generally I get 80% germination. (hence all the babies). I trade, and sell the seeds. last year I had about 3000 seeds! A few too many for the spare room. I have also successfully used the water germination method. Float the seeds in water. It is okay for them to touch but not overlap. I keep an eye on the water and add or change most of the water. You should start seeing results in about 10-14 days. What I don't like about this method is transplanting the seeds with such a fragile root into soil. I find it more finiky (that a word?) than just straight into soil. When I plant them in the soil I stick the fat end of the seed, papery covering and all, into the soil standing it upright (vertically). Really good results and very strong seedling. The soil method takes much longer to see results. I believe up to 6 weeks for some, even in the same batch. All depends on your patience level. I found unsuccessful pollination occured when I applied pollen only once and then there is that diploid issue which I have not figured out yet. One of these days I will do research on it. I remember quite some time ago it was mentioned in some news group but I didn't know enough then to understand let alone ask an intelligent question. I do know it would explain why Papillo butterfly did not cross with anything that I tried. Having mentioned Papillo butterfly. I bought two from RC last year and gave the one with the scape to my mother for Christmas. The second one came with some rot, I notified them (and was told on my next order they would fix the problem- and they did on the next order!) I did not get flowers of course on that one. This year I only got leaves again! I thought I read somewhere here that they can be difficult to get to rebloom. Any suggestions of how to get it to perform?

I have a 36"Wolf induction cooktop and the Wolf downdraft behind it, on a 11ft long center island. If you are already used to cooking on an induction cooktop,you know that any drops of water or any slight touch, will change the element heat up/down. It's important to have the delicate controls off to the side somewhere, so one doesn't inadvertently change the settings and burn the food. The burners, 4 of them, work great. I love how fast they cook. The 5th burner, the largest one, worked for about 1 year, then quit. One cannot just replace the faulty burner. One has to replace the whole cooktop, so I didn't do that. It's a transistor thing, the repairman said. The downdraft went up/down, with a concealed switch. It looks great, but only comes up about 12-14" tall. One day, it wouldn't retract, so it's stuck in the upright position behind the cooktop, and it doesn't turn on./off. Again, I have to replace the whole thing, according to the repairman. I have had this cooktop and downdraft 10 years. Look at all the choices on the mkt. today. I had no choice, really, as induction was new to the American mkt. I also recently bought a SubZero ice dispensing side by side, refrig/freezer. It's OK, but holds less than the KA I replaced it with. The best DW I have found, is the Bosch, with 3 racks. I can fold all the racks down to fit almost anything. A lot of DW do not have fold down tines. You do have to use salt to keep glassware sparkling. TRM

make sure you get the right one because some of them are not really ad blockers they are adware or worse, I had to help someone try to get one of those rogues off and it was a pain. I don't use chrome, maybe jasdip or someone that uses the real one can give you a link so you know you have the right one. I use adblock plus on my firefox and I see there is one for Chrome and I know adblock plus is good Adblock Plus for Chrome you can also get it at the chrome store. Chrome Addon: AdBlock for Google Chrome