Joanne, if you did these as a "first-timer", its going to be amazing to see what you create in the future! Wow! I think everything turned out wonderful. I never thought of decoupaging on a bowling ball either. I've been planning for the looonnnnnggggggest time how to mosaic one, and done nothing. And can't draw to save my life. YOU have given me a new idea now tho. And to make these tributes to your Mom....how very special that is. I bet she is smiling down at you and saying "you go, Girl". I know the holidays are probably real tough on you this year. So try to think of her smiling at the things you are creating not only for her, but thru her and with her. A big welcome and I'm so glad you joined us here and shared your photos. Hope we see a lot more from you. hugs, Karen

Hi Carol, I can understand how the idea of building permits ever got started--protection of the public!--and the real needs for that in housing and other buildings. But if it gets applied to pergolas, it seems unrelated to public safety. How much do they charge someone for building a pergola? Perhaps the charge is so low that it's a mere nuisance? The main argument for a pergola is that it's very inviting and attractive the year around. I have seen pictures of posts with chain swags in a famous Paris public garden and the roses look fantastic there. As best I can recall, the posts were large pillars and fairly tall, though I cannot find a picture now. The rub would be what it would look like in the winter and early spring if you're not building large (wide) pillars, but are using wooden posts. If you are headed toward a circle of posts, a circle of tepees might look better when uncovered in the winter and early spring. Our first fence was professionally installed and the fence-builder's suggestion was that posts set into a gravel footing hole would work fine. Anything set up as our do-it-yourself building books suggested, with the posts in concrete, would have been noticeably more money so we went for what we could afford at the time, and that was already plenty expensive. That method did work reasonably well, although not quite totally solidly if you pushed against a post. After about 20-25 years the posts had rotted in the ground, though, and my husband had to do the fence posts over again. At one time, our fencing on two sides held thin "farm" wire mesh fencing (6 feet high) and I loved the looks of it, because beyond the fence were beautiful woodsy areas I liked to be able to see and the fencing didn't detract or distract from that view. I think the sections were about 8' each, as you are considering for yours. I'm no expert at all on rabbits, but I wonder whether a fence that is only 3' high would be tall enough. I think, though I'm not positive as to the exact route the rabbit took, that a rabbit here has jumped up to some landscape timbers that were 3' or higher off the ground (to trim way back our Julia Child roses for us). Rabbits love roses. The best way to make sure you have no deer problems is to prevent deer from finding your roses and vegetables in the first place. I'd suggest that you not wait to see what happens, because once hungry deer have a memory of getting food at a certain place, it's much, much more difficult to ever keep them out. There's a book that discusses keeping out deer that's well worth reading now (right now, to help you plan). Your local library ought to have it, but if not, it's relatively inexpensive to buy from Amazon: "Deerproofing Your Yard & Garden" by Rhonda Massingham Hart. Deer aren't kept out by rose hedges, not if jumping them is to a spot they are already familiar with, such as would be the case for them while the roses were growing up. They don't jump into areas they can't see or are unfamiliar with, though. Deer will eat roses, all roses, even very thorny ones, if they are hungry enough. That tends to occur in winter and early spring during some years, but not all. (After a famine, generally caused by more breeding than the land's vegetation can support, the deer don't reproduce well, so the deer population pressure on the land lowers for a few years then; that cycle can mislead you into thinking that you've solved the deer access problem when you haven't.) Your gorgeous front gate with an arch will be wonderful, and so inviting. I've seen many pictures of that being done, and don't think I've ever seen one that looked less than wonderful! Best of luck! Mary Here is a link that might be useful: Phillip Oliver's pictures offer lots of landscaping ideas

Ye, you get this junk which costs you over $200.00 and then you need a plumber to install it. My solution is called the "WaterMaker Mini" by numbus. It costs around $80.00 and fits to any american tap socket, it can then be cliped on and off the tap as you use it. Over all depending on the amount of plants you have you will save a massive amount that buying it distilled. It ofcause is no good if its only for a few plants, then your 2 gallon bottles will last you plenty of time to make it acceptable. Ok, the cold thing. VFT's come from America, they are tough suckers!!! These plants go dorment which means they are used to winters and infact can survive in conditions as low as -20 F!!!! So no prob with that, people use terrariums alot on conditions that are not ideal to the plant, to kinda fake the plant out to believe its still back home in Carolina. You can use one if you please, just no sun with a sealed terrarium like we said. If you plan on puttin them outdoors, get them used to the sun light by doing what I said. Ok, the most important things to a VFT's happiness is good soil (peat moss/perlite mix with sphagnum moss top layer), good water (distilled, rain, R/O) and good light (full sun (once they are used to it), Fluorecent, Compact Fluorecent) Other than that, use the tray method to always have water in the tray, if the winters get cold by you (snow and such) you can leave your plant out for winter (dont give as much water, it should be moist then but not wet, no feeding the plant during dormency time) then you could apply a mulsh to protect the plant or a tarp if you have ice winds which will burn them. At this time if the plant goes into dormency you will see the growth slows down to a stop, cut off any and all dead leaves and like I said not as much water. A nice pot to have if you can find one are these new lightweight fibreglass insulated pots. They have double lining (dont know if there is a filler inside) that keeps the roots warmer during cold and cooler during hot (kinda like the roof insulation idea) You should be able to save your plant if the bulb is fine like Byron_1 said, if you have been soaking it constantly with this hard water it may be a good idea to get fresh soil mix, carefully unpot so you can check to root system/bulb and if its not too much then repot it and give it good light and water. Like we have said, they are quite tough, most times than not they spring back to life. If you need a light bulb instead of growing outdoors, get a cheap everyday lamp stand and a compact fluorecent bulb (it should say the equivelent to a 100watt incandesent) and place this bulb 8-10" above the plant media for about 14 hours per day in summer. Hope this helps a bit Sheldon

So. 1 Year in. Where are we? I am actually moving out of my house into an apartment. The apartment will apparently have significantly less sunlight, although I am not sure. My roommate got a "Top Fin" 30 Gallon Aquarium Kit from the local Petsmart, apparently they have a smaller kit that's just a 30 Gallon Aquarium and the Light. It's a single light, about 2 feet long -- I have to wonder if a similar kit would make a serviceable terrarium in an emergency. I split apart my two White Trumpets. The drainless planter they are in was killing them, their media stunk to high heaven. I instead got a second drainless planter and put a plastic pot in each one. This lets me pick the plastic pot out and check the water levels -- in essence, the drainless planters are saucers in this setup. Still, it works, and they still look nice. I repotted my D. Adelae, my Cape Sundew 'Alba', and my D. spatulata in a 7" plastic terrarium bowl that I have had laying around for a long time. I put too much soil in it, so I'm hoping to dig a little out -- and with the help of a little water to make it a bit malleable -- lower the soil level tomorrow. As it stands they're all right at the rim, but... I'd like them to have a little room to grow. The D. Adelae had a stupidly huge root system. It was growing in pure LFS, never repotted from the Deathcube pot. It wasn't doing too great, it was growing great leaves but it's dew wouldn't stick around. I am hoping a better environment will work. The D. spatulata was actually a colony of about 6 plants, I put two back in it's original container and 4 in the terrarium. No sense not keeping a backup. ;) Decided to steal one of my Monkey Cup's guest plants, a Cape Sundew seedling. It's now in the Terrarium too. If my Pygmys do any gemmae, I may sprinkle some in the terrarium between the other plants. Heck, once I have a better idea of my new living situation, I might just move those plants out into individual plants or a more traditional great big 7.5 or 12" pot and fill the plastic fishbowl thing with Pygmy gemmae. Speaking of Pygmys, I repotted mine about a week ago. Took my 2 Butterworts (P. moranensis and P. grandiflora) and my 2 Pygmy Drosera (D. pulchella x nitidula and my lone surviving D. scorpioides) and put them all in a nice big mix of Sphagnum, Perlite, and White Horticultural sand in a huge 7.5" pot. It was kinda scary repotting the pygmys, but I just took them out soil and all and plopped them on top of the soil in the pot, and worked them in. They did not seem to have the huge roots I associate with pygmys, for some reason. The sickly butterwort (Grandiflora, I believe) had stinky media, I think it was approaching root rot. It's very tiny, has died back to just 2 leaves half an inch thick. The other Butterwort lost a leaf in the move, but seems to be ok. It's odd -- wherever the leaves actually touch the ground, they brown up and die. As long as they're not on the ground directly, they're fine. The scorpioides seems to be happier, it has put out 2 or 3 new branches. I was worried because it was doing what it's 4 brothers did -- the tips of it's branches turn crispy and brown and never do anything, then eventually it spreads to the main plant. Similarly, I had lost some of the p. x n. but the majority of them have perked right up since being moved to the bigger pot. About when should I start looking for the signs of Gemmae production? And what are those signs? The main part of the plant swells up a bit and then I see green "peas" in the middle?