First of all, according to various people, you may want to reconsider keeping your catfish and pond fish together. I posted a link below - or you can do a search yourself on the subject. In our pond in Upstate NY (similar in zone to you), I remove all my tropical plants in early October. We cut back our hardy water lilies which are planted directly in the pond and drop to the bottom the other hardy plants. Our pond is 3 feet deep and approx. 3,000 gallons so the fish overwinter in the pond. I don't know what you should do with a pond that small. We purchased a plastic 100 gallon tub at Country Max for our tropical plants, and I think that would work well for your fish if you decide to bring them indoors. You would have to add a pump or air stone for aeration and something for filtration. My husband altered the "plug" with a faucet and we can drain it pretty easily with a garden hose into our basement sewer come spring. Here is a link that might be useful: catfish in a pond

It's good to hear a little something from good old VSW. I had heard her name, but didn't know much about her until I read about her in conjunction with my visit to Sissinghurst a few years ago. I still don't quite know what to do with most her novels, but I'm consistently inspired, challenged, and delighted by her poetry. Still, though, as for the sentiment behind it, it strikes me as a noble but unfortunate attempt at "polishing turds," as they say. Y'all's climate sucks! As a former resident and gardener in the frozen zones, I've got to say that it makes a whole lot more sense to me to find a place to live where the winter months don't "dishearten" the gardener quite so much. On some level, I can appreciate the muted, understated beauty of a winter garden in the frigid North (or dreary Kent, probably), and my masochistic side enjoys visiting friends and family there in the winter sometimes. The rest of me enjoys coming home even more, though. Those of you in places like that might as well make the best of it as long as you're there. But it still seems like life is too short to throw away a third of it every year waiting for your yard to thaw out. My heart goes out to you, as the rest of me floats away on the intoxicating, tangy aroma wafting in from my garden of the edgeworthia in full flower on this third day of March. Thanks for sharing, Mindy!

Ok, so I purchased a Princess Flower plant from Edens Gardens (AL) last spring and have transplanted it three times before I found a location that works. I'm over in humid and hot Houston, and the "sunny" requirement is different for those of us in sunny southern states (hello, Florida). You need indirect or filtered light for this sensitive guy. In a full southern exposure, it did not grow and required a LOT of water to not dry out. I moved him to a mostly shady spot on northern exposure, and that did well, but its location was experiemental in my garden and wouldn't have worked at full growth. I then planted the little guy just near where the sun may shine over on northern exposure, so it's bright indirect light, maybe a splash of direct sun for an hour. The plant is taking off, slowly putting out big, fuzzy healthy leaves. The heat for us is a little intense with the humidity and direct sun, so I'd recommend finding a spot in your yard/garden with bright indirect light, with only a couple hours of direct sun. On a second note, I am from California and they grow like mad in the SF bay area, almost always in filtered light. At my alma mater SF State, they grew a species into a tree, almost 25 feet, next to a building with filtered light. It was stunning. Good luck!!

Dave, Hehe...I hope its that easy with my toms this year. I've had BER in the past with a few types of tomatoes in containers, but ever since I started adding domolite to my mixes, it seems to have been alleviated. This is also the first time I've had it when using SWCs. Its funny that you mention how you've seen it disappear as plants mature. In my current situation I've seen two patterns to it's appearance. The first was with the Olpaka which has been about 75% of the fruits having BER since the first ones set last month. The other pattern with the Cherokee Purple, Kellogs, and as of today Arkansas Traveler is one where a month of good fruit set and growth is followed by new fruit developing BER. The older fruit is still healthy. I know that temps, water conditions, etc. play a major role in the plants' ability to uptake calcium. Aside from the normal, seasonal warm up we are experiencing, there hasn't been any appreciable change in the weather or other conditions. So far, the only variable that seems to be different this year than previous ones is the absence of the domolite. I'll try a little of everything in attempting to eliminate the BER on new fruit. If anything works or if the plants just decide to "grow up" and act like adults, so long as the BER disappears, I'll be happy. Steven