Glo - Thanks for reassuring me! I hope your move is awesome! My husband has wanted to move us to Colorado for years and hasn't managed to quite convince me yet, although I think it's absolutely wonderful there. LOL So, Winter Solstice is the same everywhere? (LOL)... I guess you're seeing how little I know... Nancy - Thanks for the tip! I am gonna have to watch the lead hand myself as I way oversowed my cantaloupes this fall. The poor babies are fighting each other and giving me 2 to 5 inches fruits that don't look like they're EVER going to full ripen. I will be much more careful in the future. I'll try to not get TOO excited when I go to plant. LOL Carrie - Wow! That's some really good info. That's exactly the kind of thing I was worried about. I'm grateful for the heads up. Liz - LIZ!!! Hey, girl! Fancy meeting you here and there and now here! hee hee... The whole last paragraph of what you wrote is exactly what is concerning me. I know that I personally wear shorts through-out almost the whole winter except for those few crazy days that we see. 50's or what have you is not cold to me... We do get the occasional freeze, but then a week or two later at most you could have a 70+ degree high! All this in the same few days / weeks / months... it's SO crazy! Oh, and if they're having a plantswap around the 8th of December as well, I sure want to know as I'll be out that way. :-) Blessings, Angela

Hi hoovb, Thank you for responding. I suppose it has but the tree is too tall for me to see clearly. My Butia which is not as tall is showing the same symptoms. The dates came and fell in what seemed to be more than usual, then one night I actually dreamed about the spear falling off. I thought it was from me reading so much about dying palms. Sure enough I went outside that morning and saw what looked like a large long yellow tail in the center of my Butia...a few days later it sectioned into parts and turned brown and fell to the ground. Now this happened on my largest palm with just the dates falling in just really really large amounts so much so that we had be scoop them out of the pool for like a week. It was about a month later that all the fronds turned brown. The Butia is so far still green.

Hi Virginia, I grow several varites of Colocasias. I have left the Red Stem ones in a raised bed for a couple of years and they come back. I always pour a load of mulched leaves on them every fall. I dug up my babies this fall and potted them up in the unheated GH so I'm hoping to have some to trade in the Spring. I've got "Black Magic" and the "Red stems" and am going to get the burgandy and green leaf one soon. I also put a pot of "Frydek" in the GH that I will get to divide next year. I'm going to take atleast one of each and put them in one of my beds and mulch heavy to see what will happen to them. I really don't like having to take them in. I did learn something a few years ago with non-hardy amaryllis. I planted a few around a big old oak and several in one of my garden beds. The ones around the oak still come up and bloom each year. The ones in the bed, froze into a big glob of mush. So, the soil definetly stays warmer when there is a structer or tree close to the plant you want to plant. I had no idea it could make that much difference. My neighbor has one of the huge red and white Amaryllis that she planted 4 years ago in the corner where her house meets the sidewalk and this thing is huge!It had about 20 big blooms this year. I'm going to try to convience her she needs to divide it! This plant came from the florist and it is not supposed to be hardy. We've had many nights in the teens and that thing just keeps on growing in her mini tropical area close to her house. I guess all the concrete and brick act like heaters in the winter. S0, even if it's not supposed to live, if you pick the right, protected spot and add your bubble wrap, you should have some nice plants next year. OH yes, do not completely cover the plants with this like every0ne said. It will act like a stem bath on bright sunny days and you will have soup! Love to you all, Mona

Actually there are two Mr. Stripeys. The first one, called Tigerella is a small red with gold stripes and was bred by the Glasshouse Research inst in England and came out of the same cross that gave us Craigella and Tangella. I like the latter two but not the first one. Tigerella quickly became known as Mr. Stripey. Then the former owner of the stable of companies that were sold to Jung's a few years ago came up with a typical large gold/red bicolor of which there are about 150 similar varieties, sent the seeds to Seeds by Design in CA, a wholesale place, and they didn't know there already was a MR. Stripey so called this second oone Mr. Stripey as well. Thus leading to lots of confusion at several seed sites where the two were confused. Seeds by Design sends out a list of varieties to many commercial large scale farmers, nurseries and the like, which is why you see the large bicolor one at almost ALL of the big box stores and nurseries. But you say red with black stripes, probably dark green actually, and there are several varieties that look like that and one I know is at Territorial Seeds. Hope that helps. Carolyn