Sun damage. The purple is a sign that the plant is receiving the upper limits of its light tolerance...a sort of suntan. This is a good thing under most circumstances. I encourage this coloring on any plant I have the produces it. The brown blister is where the sun got a little too intense. Its pretty easy to make a mistake with light this time of year. The light is currently getting more and more intense through the windows. If you can reduce the light just a little bit, that will help keep the purple tint but not be strong enough to burn the leaves. I do suspect this came about as a result of your repotting. When you repot, the resulting stress on the plant is such that the plant can't tolerate its normal amount of light. So for a few weeks after repotting its good to keep it in lower-than-normal light and gradually work the plant back up to the normal light intensity as it gets established. I'll admit I don't do this; I'm impatient and just put my plants back in their regular light. For the most part I don't have any problems but there have been one or two plants that have had this repotting sun damage.

Silva orchids may not have a red phal, but they have the most beautiful Christmas red Potinara Redheart "Neptune" that I ever saw. Carter and Holmes wanted $75 for their red one, but Silva only wanted $35. My plant is fully grown now and I get six or nine gorgeous red flowers every year. Parkside is well worth the effort to see. The six greenhouses are all neat and clean, and the plants are meticulously well groomed. The staff is very patient and helpful. They have far more plants than they list on their website. Thirty-five dollars may seem like a lot of money, but a healthy plant doesn't require money spent on insecticides and weeks of trying to eradicate a seige of insects or weeks of trying to coax roots on a plant that was overwatered, or months of patiently waiting for a flower spike.

The gnats you saw are likely fungus gnats as you suspect but they aren't your problem, they don't bite. The adults are completely harmless to anything at all, its their larvae in the potting medium that can present damage, by feeding on plants fine roots. Tricks for ridding your kitchen of fruit flies like the vinegar don't work for fungus gnats as you've seen. The adults have very brief little lives, its the breeding cycle you need to stop. Get some form of one of the BTi products (Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelenis). The subspecies is important, its specific to mosquito and gnat larvae. Gnatrol, Knock out Gnats, others, or in a pinch buy a package of mosquito dunks, drop a dunk in a container of water, let it sit overnight and use that water on your normal watering schedule for container plants, each time you water, for at least three weeks. It takes a while to break the breeding cycle but be patient, it will eliminate the gnats so be consistent. And the BTi is non toxic to you, your home, pets, birds, harmful only to mosquito and gnat larvae. I don't know what's biting you, it's not fungus gnats. Their larvae stay in the potting medium, either in the bag or your pots, and they aren't causing your itching either. Whether there was something else in that bag, or if the timing was completely coincidental, I couldn't say....

Hello William, its not clear from your post what's happening - in your first paragraph you write that he is loving when he's by himself with no other cats around, and then in the second paragraph he's biting people - is this a sister's daughter a child? Sadly you don't know what happened in his other life - could be children mistreated him. And sadly, often the more insecure and scared an animal is (again you don't know what kind of past hes had) the more they may be aggressive to other cats - cats still have a bit of the wild in them, and in the wild they would be competing for food and resources if these are scarce. If this cat came from a shelter, some have a harder time than others - animals know when they're not wanted, if their people have given them away and some may need an extra amount of love and reassurance before they start to relax and show their true personalities. And its sad too that shelters are so over burdened with unwanted animals and that you can't get assistance from them when you need it What I want to say is that you may be the person who may be in the best position to do right by this cat. If you look for a home for him then you are in the best position to be able to tell possible adopters things they really need to know - like he needs to be the only cat , in a home without children (if its children specifically he's having a problem with - not clear from your post ). The shelter you adopted him from should have provided you this type of information but for whatever reason did not. I have been in the situation of finding homes for stray or unwanted cats many times ... Word of mouth amongst friends coworkers and acquaintances is the best for a situation like this.-Otherwise, there's a way to screen people and be sure of a good match. In this situation you don't want first come first served - you want to know that its a situation that he'll do well in. If someone gets huffy about your screening them, then too freaking bad. The person you want understands why you're doing it, and I've also found that if YOU care about the cat, that appeals to people and they're more likely to want to adopt from you - Just be honest, be his advocate, make it clear that this cat has had a difficult time of it, that you want him to be in a place where he fits in and will do well, you want to be sure his next home works out, and of course along with the explanation of why he would do better in another home dont forget to point out his good qualities ( you did say he was loving right?) (BTW is he declawed? Declawed cats do sometimes become biters because they have no other defense. You and/or the adopter would need to learn to read his signals when he's had enough - ears flattened back, tense look on face - before he resorts to biting.) I hope this helps - I know from personal experience its a very difficult situation.