Endless summer hydrangeas are macrophyllas. IOW those who usually bloom on old wood. They, however, are mutants who bloom not only on old wood, but new wood. They became popular for folks not only to extend the bloom time, but the zones in which a macrophylla could be grown and reliably bloom. If your's isn't blooming yet, it is probably because you pruned off the old wood it would be blooming from. Another reason for low bloom response is the buds set on the old wood were frozen out in a hard winter. So, if you had severe weather last winter, they may not have bloomed on the old wood anyway. We wait until spring to prune our Endless summer and any other macrophylla to see how much old wood survived. On our standard bushes, we don't expect bloom. On the Endless Summer we expect some bloom when the new wood is mature enough. You should be getting some bloom later on your new wood.

Someone else (I think it was granny) posted a formula for 100% germination of carrots. Quoted I spaced them at 1" but I was sort of thinking I should have done 2"." Who knew they were all going to grow! Although I did have the same rate of germination last year when I glued them to the Kleenex ;-) It's a good thing we love baby carrots. For those who would like to try this method, here is what I did: I used Elmer's Glue...the white kind, which is water soluble. I just laid out the 12-inch square sheet of newspaper, grabbed a Sharpie pen and made the dots an inch apart in all directions, then put the dots of glue on the marks. I took a pencil and moistened (licked) the tip and picked up one carrot seed at a time and nudged it into the glue. It only took a few minutes, at the table while having my morning coffee! I let them dry over night before planting. I laid the sheets of seeds on top of the bed (damp ground....water the area before hand) and just barely covered them with some sifted soil. Then I laid boards over them until they began to emerge (check daily after the first week...when you see green remove the boards). After they were up a couple of inches, I could still see some of the newspaper poking out above the surface so I just took a few handfuls of soil and sifted a bit more over the top. I ended up with 336 seeds in a 1'x4' area, but I'd suggest cutting that amount in half. I've also made carrot seed tapes with 2" strips of newspaper, and I glued that seed with slightly farther spacing. End quote I have tried this (forgot the board) and I am waiting results. I have seen about 4 sprouts (2 inches apart and did 2 squares) so far. I also did the half carrots in the 6 inch soil. Maybe the seeds and newspaper might give you 100% germination with only one seed.

Sorry, I said hinges when I meant drawer slides at one point in the post. Thanks for asking for pictures. When I took some crappy iPhone pics I could easily see some of the hinges that need adjustment. For example, in this one you can see clearly that the slide on the one side is much closer to the front than the other one: This would account for the fact that it doesn't soft close (further back side is not catching the thingy-do in the front on the bottom of the drawer) and for the fact it sticks out a bit, since I'm guessing the one is too far forward for a full close. Tried to get that too: On another one, the closer inspection showed me that the issue was the slide wasn't level. Since the bottom of the drawer lines up with the one below but the top sticks out. This one is really horrible and baffling to me why they wouldn't fix it right then: My husband is thinking that the guy wanted to go home and since he knows someone will have to come back out with new doors, he just left all this stuff (they ordered all our full length wall cabinet doors an inch short, which they swear has never happened before, so they don't know yet if they screwed up the measurements or the door company screwed up. I'm having a lot of supposed firsts, like the faucet and sink company that says I am the first person ever to get a magna-tite Delta faucet with the magnet missing - lucky me).

Thank you both for the information! So nice to hear from helpful folks who know their stuff. So as for soil, I'm using a pre-mixed organic cactus mix by E.B. Stone. It says it's 30-40% pumice, aged fir (softwood) bark, aged redwood (softwood) and sand. I actually assumed it had peat in it and I'm relieved that, at least according to the bag, it doesn't. If either of you, or anyone else out there, have any thoughts on that mix, I'd definitely be interested to hear them. As for the vines that withered at the base, it's as though they just dried up at the base of the vine where they come out of the soil. When I pull the vine, the roots actually look normal and healthy. It's not like root rot I've seen in the past where things are slimy. Perhaps it's just a type of root rot I'm not familiar with? So here's a twist in my dilemma... The vines that are in the south facing window are actually growing in upside-down containers. You water them through holes in the top which fills a terracotta reservoir which sits on top of the dirt. The water then wicks through the terracotta reservoir into the soil. So it doesn't work like a traditional container where you soak the soil and let the water drain out the bottom. The reservoir just slowly wets the soil from the bottom (which might support niksouthafrica's theory that the withered vines are the result of staying wet too long). Maybe this type of system just won't work for the Senecio, but I'm really hoping I can make it work since I've put a lot of work into it. At this point I'm putting a small amount of water in each container and watering every two weeks. Interestingly, as for the foliage, I'm getting the same undersized growth in the upside down pots as I am on the vines in traditional pots that are under grow lights. The ones in the traditional pots are still in the soil they came from the nursery in. Both locations do get a lot of direct light (sun in one, artificial in the other), so I'll try reducing that. Nik, thanks so much for the clarification on their native habitat. It's always good to know where your plants actually thrive. I hope hope hope I can visit South Africa some day soon. And thank you for the link. Very helpful. If anyone has any further insight given the new info I've provided, obviously I'd love to hear it. Thanks!!!