I was wondering about the TP rolls, too! Oh yes, there's thousands shells all over the house. For years we went to Holden Beach, NC for Christmas. When you're the only people on a barrier island, the shells are ABUNDANT! There are still shells from NC that are packed in boxes in my shed. Tons of big cockles, olive, clams, scallops, venus clams, baby ears, kittens' paw, jingle shells, turrets and augers, so pretty! Also have shells from vacations in Norfolk VA, and Hilton Head SC. At HH, I found a lot of sand dollars caught in the tide pools. Then there are the FL shells, oh my. Every piece of clear glass I can find is filled with them, and we've found a TON of great ones on Cape San Blas, just SE of Panama City. We like to camp at the state park there and took a golf cart once and made it 7 miles down a sand path to the end of the island. Wow there were shells in the bay! You're right about throwing the live ones back in, most of the really pretty shells in FL have marine hermit crabs in them (which are not the kind kept as pets, marine crabs need an established salt aquarium.) We found a ton of purple urchins, horseshoe crab shells, big scallops with pink and purple stripes, and others whose names escape me at the moment, pounds of them. My favorite are the tiny coquina shells though. After many years of picking them up, I still have only a small jar full but we add more often, it's only 90 minutes to the beach from here. An especially good haul from a camping trip last spring:

Sharon, Here's a couple of links you may find helpful. An African Violet needs a pot just big enough for its root system. You could run into problems if you pot in a container that is too large. In my growing conditions, I've found that 4 inch pots are plenty big enough for standard size violets. The baby on the side of your rescue plant is a sucker. If you don't remove it, it will cause the plant to become deformed. I usually use a hobby knife (such as x-acto) with a clean blade to remove the sucker. The sucker can be rooted and will produce a new plant quicker that propagating from a leaf. Good luck, Tim http://www.rachelsreflections.org/ http://www.violetbarn.com/faq/faq.html Here is a link that might be useful: Rachel's Reflections

You can cut the plastic away. But, for me, it's easier to turn it upside down and tap it on the edge of a counter, porch, deck, something that won't squash the leaves, and allows room for it to come out of the pot. Put some of your potting soil in the bottom of the new pot that will be its new home and tamp it down. Put the plant in and see that the top is at about 1-2" from the top. You don't won't to put soil above the original soil line. You want it to be at the same level it was in the original pot. Then fill in soil around the sides, tamping it down as you go. Then water. If the soil on the sides sinks down a bit, add some more around the perimeter. Sometimes I add a little Osmocote (time-release fertilizer) to the soil mix, or you can fertilize it with super bloom afterwards to minimize the shock to the plant of being repotted. You'll probably notice that you won't need to water it as much as when it was root bound in the old pot, although peace lilies can grow in water. Susan

Michael, As far as my advice regarding sunlight, I'm no expert, so I don't really know if the rotation you are doing will be ok for them. In your original statement, you said you were "completely new to cacti", so I just wanted to make sure were aware of their need for sunlight. Many people buy these types of plants, and place them on a dark shelf or corner. Cacti will linger on for months or even years, so people think the plant is doing well, when in fact it's barely hanging on to life. I have a few cacti that a friend gave me. They are potted in horrible Miracle Grow soil, which I had never given any thought to until I became moere knowledgable. They are on a southwest facing windowsill in my kitchen. So, in the summer they get tons of sunlight. The heater is directly underneath that windowsill, so they get lots of heat. Because of those conditions, even the bad MG soil dries out fast, and I water these cacti very, very frequently, which is contrary to the way they should be watered, but, all except the tiniest one, have grown beautiful. One of them is growing like a week. I will post a picture later