Beautiful plants! I love the H. Hindu Rope too! I have 3 pots of it! It is kinda hard to tell from the picture but it looks just like a leaf sunburn or damage. I've seen that on mine if part of the leaf dies. I'm sure that is why you are not having any other ill affects from it! So in this case, it is Purely cosmetic. If it bothers you then you can remove , but if not leave it. It will probably regrow a new one if you remove it but may take ... Time. Thanks for sharing your wonderful plants :)

Water hyacinths consume prodigious amounts of nutrients. If enough of the right kinds of nutrients are available they will really take off once the water warms up. Most of the time, if they are not doing well it is because one of the essential nutrients is unavailable. Potash is often the culprit but it can sometimes be a lack of iron. You can just add these nutrients to the pond. There is no need to put them in a bucket of miracle grow. If the problem is a potash shortage, the hyacinths will have an olive green tint and will have long root systems. They will not grow much and will not be budding babies. If the problem is an iron shortage they will be chlorotic, which means they will not produce chlorophyll and will exhibit a pronounced sickly yellow color. They might also have more dead leaves than usual. Add some potash and/or some chelated iron and see what happens. If the problem is a nutrient deficiency, and you add the right nutrient, you should see improvement in a few days.

Last season I had such success in setting seed in Caladiums that I had hundreds of tiny plantlets started. The female parts are receptive before the inflorescence opens, so either you need fresh pollen available on another inflorescence at that time, or you need to save pollen for use at the right time. How did I know when to pollinate? By watching the inflorescences develop, I noticed that a day or two before it opened, the spathe expanded or "poofed" a little, and the color of the spathe also lightened up a little. That is when, in the morning, I cut open the spathe around the pistils and put pollen on them. If you wait until the spathe opens, you are too late. You know it has worked when you see whitish berries developing. The pistil area swells noticeably until you can see it as a cluster of berries tightly squeezed together. You need to put a little stocking bag over them when they are near ripening because they all fall off and you can lose them. The seeds within the berries are very small, smaller than pinhead size, and are a job to clean, but it can be done. The following link has detailed information on breeding Caladiums; scroll down to near the bottom of the page where you will find a four part series on this. Hope this helps, LariAnn Garner Aroidia Research http://aroidiaresearch.org Here is a link that might be useful: Caladium breeding (near bottom of page)

Well, I just did a few more containers with the ProMix, and I'm coming around a bit. The leftover stuff in the bucket was fine. I barely had to moisten it again - and not enough time for gnats, lol! I'm still disappointed about the volume issue. However, I realized that since I usually put the MG in the containers and then dampen, it does settle. Therefore, I don't have to fill my containers quite as deeply as I was yesterday with the premoistened ProMix. I was putting the damp ProMix to the same level as the dry MG. Now I'm putting it to the same level as the moist MG. That saves me a little. Also, it really is a nice medium. It's great not having to pick out the sticks. ANother downside is I find it time consuming to moisten and mix the ProMix (I usually do my WSing on the fly and have to do it quickly). But... it's so darn much fun to stick your hands in that bucket of mix and mush it around, lol! Maybe it's not so bad after all! But I do think I will go back to MG. Just a bit quicker and easier for me, and the price is about the same. Thanks for all the input, guys! :) Dee