Thanks Mike, No spidermites in sight but I am battling an army of fungus gnats ( I have sticky tape all around her) the Hibiscus, has been surprisingly easy to take care of. the only thing I do regularly is to rotate her every time I water her. The room she is in, gets afternoon sun but none directly on her. Perhaps sitting next to the patio glass door helps. I enjoy your postings here on GW. I even bought a Stephanotis after seeing a pic of yours but forget flowers, there isnt even a new leaf in sight. :( Regards Usha

Wow, thank you for the flattering comments. My gardens are chaos and overwhelming to most gardeners, but I am glad some of my conehead forum buddies enjoy them. Ritmass, I'm in Washington state, near Seattle. TJ, that's a GREAT looking specimen and still wonderfully dwarf to my eyes. Looks to be 15-20 years old as well. I can only hope mine looks that nice down the road. Edwin, you're correct, it's the neighbors, who stubbornly insists on an acre of turf. Moles, watering, brown messy turf in late Summer. Fertilizer, mowing, I just don't get it but to each their own. I DO love the 'Elegantissima' as well and it will remain in my lower gardens and I'll move others out of it's way(or prune it up ever so slightly). Dave, I don't actually get popups but as Alex alluded to, it's the shrinkening of the photo space that annoys me, and most of it, once the adds at the upper portion of the screen are gone, is 40% blank! I don't use a 'smartphone', and find them still pretty dumb but I do understand their cattering to the masses. It just makes me a little less eager to post photos and visit their site. I'm not going anywhere though. Fine people like you guys and gals keep me here. -Will

OK, first, oranges, lemons and limes are sufficiently acidic that they can be water bath canned using only water, so it's not a safety issue to reduce the sugar level. I have been unhappy with results using stevia, Splenda and Equal, so I stopped using them. You can, however, make low/no sugar fruit spreads using pectin made especially for no-sugar or low sugar recipes. It's not usually interchangeable with regular pectin, you have to buy the special stuff. I normally cut the sugar in half (at least) and just cook the fruit until it either jells or gets thick, in which case it becomes a fruit butter. Low sugar jams and spreads do not keep as well, they mold more quickly after opening, they lose color and flavor and become unappetizing far more quickly. However, keeping half the sugar might alleviate that problem. I do have a problem getting citrus marmalades to jell anyway, sometimes it takes a week or longer and sometimes it never does jell, so I haven't tried a reduced sugar version of it yet. I haven't had a bumper crop of oranges yet, though. (grin) So relax, take a deep breath and step away from the jam pot for an instant. Cutting down the sugar won't kill anyone (I know you wouldn't eat moldy/rancid/spoiled jam anyway) but it may spoil quickly and you'll have to go out and get some special pectin. Annie

Ladies - Park Seed has free shipping no minimums code BLOSSOM (can't find end date on this one, just announced, figure probably weekend only). https://parkseed.com Harris Seed has free shipping UNTIL TOMORROW code 8springfs at their Gardentrends newer site. https://www.gardentrends.com EDITING to add - hard to shop just seed on this site, lots of more expensive collections and plants BUT if you click something (Vegetables then Squash for instance) you can sort price low to high and get to the seed first. Doing it that way I find 10 organic seeds for Honeyboat Delicata or Queensland Blue for just $1.09 https://www.gardentrends.com/collections/squash?sort_by=price-ascending Saw the sale code on garden.org, haven't tried it yet. Not that there's a thing I need, but do have to look ....