Shady is Elmo? I had no idea! The beauty of disgruntled worker bees or a computer chip malfunction? Are they sure it says 'die' and not just 'try'? Sometimes those things are hard to understand.

I kind of disagree with you not researching it first on text material like books. Since a book can provide a wealth of information, inquiring a person will give you limited information. Its simply too much for one person to type. The reason there are books out there, and one of the best is the Peter DÂAmatoÂs book: The Savage Garden. Amazon.com will sell books at a discount price, but you can find that book in a pubic library if you donÂt want to pay say $20 or $30 for it. It usually best to research what you want to buy before buying it 1st then asking questions later. To many a newbie have killed their plants right off the bat by adding fertilizer, planting them in regular potting soil and watering them with tap water. Or simply sending them into an irrecoverable shock by exposing them suddenly to drier air, under the sun, without hardening the plants 1st. As a result more then one newbie have wasted $2 or $5 when some purchase their plants in a general store or nursery. But others have wasted $25, $50, and even $100 worth of plants they bought from a specialized nursery. The idea people go to forum to inquire to a particular problem like a pest problem and want to find someone how they handled that problem or learn what done wrong if a plant fails to grow. So if you donÂt want to research it yourself, people will think you will be to lazy to do you own work yourself and will eventually kill their newly purchased plants anyways. Now I donÂt now which pitcher plant you fed bugs and how small these insects are? Since the plants themselves sold by Lowes are quite small and lacking the digestive fluids inside their pitchers. Most likely whatÂs going to happen is the bugs are going to rot and kill the leaves. Sundews and butterwort (P. primuliflora) donÂt have catching appendage, since it is the leaves itself that does the catching. The leaves of sundews are covered with hairs and has a "dew" drop on each hair. Butterworts on the other hand their leaf surface is covered with sticky mucilage. DonÂt feed the plants, they can do that themselves. DonÂt try feeding the Venus flytrap, even if it grows new traps, it will be too weak to digest the insect. Digesting an insect takes a lot of reserve energy before it can utilize it. It may take up to a month or 2 for a VFT to recover. Now your "Should they be fed into the soil like a regular plant?", are you referring to adding fertilizer to the soil. If so DONÂT. That is a common mistake made by newbies trying to grow their 1st CPs, adding fertilizer to the growing media. Fertilizer will kill your plants, CP have a weak root system, and is mainly used to anchor the plant to the media and draw out moisture, and thatÂs it. Fertilizer will destroy that root system and eventually kill your plants. That also means not to use regular potting soil, even if part of the ingredients contains sphagnum peat moss and perlite. It also has other things like fertilizer and wetting agents. What you need is pure sphagnum peat moss and perlite to aerate the media, nothing else. Make sure it doesnÂt have any additives at all. You mix it up in a 50:50 mix. This is the true and tried growing media for most CPs. Sit the VFT, sundews, Sarracenia pitcher plants (the purple pitcher plant) in a dish with 1 inch of water. The butterwort P. primuliflora in my experience does well growing in straight long fiber sphagnum moss and likes its media quite wet. Nepenthes only require having their media most and not as wet as other CPs. Nepenthes will require a mix of long fiber sphagnum moss used for orchids, again make sure no additives and you can mix it with one part perlite and one part fine orchid bark. They like their media most but with enough drainage for their roots. Use distilled water to water them, donÂt use for any reason tap water, purified water, or drinking water. These still contain minerals that will eventually kill your plants. Second choice is rainwater collected in a bucket, followed with R/O water but distilled is still the best choice. For now have them growing in a wind sill from indirect sunlight in their own Âterrariums (aka the cubes-of-death by the CP community), lift one corner slightly to allow ventilation, checking for drooping or wilting leaves. Be careful not to let the media dry out. In a weak lift one corner a bit more, again checking for wilting and do this slowly. This way you can harden your plants to a drier environment and give the plants time to build the natural wax coating over their leaves that protects them from drier air. As they develop new leaves, gently expose the Sarracenias and VFT to stronger sunlight, keeping an eye on wilting or sings of burning leaves. Control the amount of sunlight to allow them time to harden. Although the sundew will recover the quickest, followed by VFT & Sarracenias. Neps may take 4 months to develop new leaves and even then it will not develop new pitchers. They are known to take about half a year to recover. Nepenthes, butterwort, and the sundew will do best growing under indirect sunlight or under very bright fluorescent lamps. Nepenthes especially require at least 12 hours of bright light to grow their pitchers properly, Neps are tropical plants that do receive long hours of light. That basically covers the basics but it is better to you research things 1st and read books for information to avoid mistakes in the 1st place. Good luck.

I had a similar problem with my MIL after the birth of our DS. But in retrospect I think a lot of it was my DH fault. MIL would call DH to let him know what her wishes were for our family during her visit and not wanting to rock the boat or maybe not knowing better he would agree. Then he'd tell me and I'd say no because.... Then he'd feel caught in the middle. I blamed her, she blamed me and DH was miserable. DH and I discussed it and he agreed not to agree to anything until we discussed it. It has made all the difference. That said she's still a strong force with her own ideas of how things should be. When she came to visit when he was 2 weeks old she told DH she would sleep on his bedroom floor to take care of him all night. DH thought that was a great idea so we could both get some sleep. NOT!!! Not sure what he was thinking anyway since I was breastfeeding. Huge fight! Also when I would let her hold DS she wouldn't give him back when he cried. So I had to go take him from her. Then the next time she held him and he started to cry she would literally run away from me so I couldn't take him. She'd even go outside of the house (IMO) so I couldn't hear him cry. She also camped outside of his room so when he woke from his nap she would be the one to get him up. At 4 months he'd scream everytime he saw her because like it or not she's not the one he wanted when he woke up from a nap. UGGGG I was very protective of him too (which I think is natural when they're young) and her behavior drove me crazy! Not to mention that she kept accidentally calling herself mom when she talked to him. Now he's two and he can spend as much time as he wants with her because now when he wants me he tells her "No, I want mama." And she tells him "Grandma is as good as mama" but he still runs to find me. :) Just a suggestion but as long as your DH is on your side can't you just be aloof and say "our lives are hectic and it's not a good time to visit the cabin" and leave it at that. I would never have thought you could get away with that but my husband does it all the time! And if they push he just gets a stern tone to his voice and say "It's just not a good time." You don't owe them any more of an explanation. Then let your dear husband take it from there if necessary. They really are his problem to deal with.

Ann, your description of a gardener cracked me up. It describes me to a "T". At one time I pined for a greenhouse, skydiving and hot air balloon rides among other things. The urge for skydiving has passed ( a DD-in-law broke her ankle and knee doing it and now has a few metal plates but mostly the change of heart is due to advancing age) but a balloon ride and a greenhouse...sign me up! Cath