I got some new ones: an echiveria affinis, a "warty aloe," a crassula 'hobbit' (not sure of the actual name), a reddish sedum of some sort, and two that I still haven't identified. Cuttings from any of these are available for trade.

Dear Rootman, Many of your questions can be answered with a "Yes". For starters, I might suggest a visit to the vendors room of the Eastern Cactus and Succulent Conference which will be held in the town of Coraopolis, PA. Holiday Inn Airport Hotel, August 25-27. At least one of the vendors, Earth Shanty Cactus, will be selling their specialty, cold hardy plants. Theirs will be the first table I will visit. The Pittsburgh Cactus and Succulent Club is hosting the event. Also, there is a Yahoo forum, "Too Cold for Cactus", devoted to the topic. Hope this is a start. Al

I am further south than all that have spoken so far so I might not be on topic at all. It got down to 36 last night. That was a surprise so today I started moving some of my pots. Our lows will be bouncing around upper 40's and 50's for the next week. But I move most of my Aloes and cactuses down to a covered stone patio that faces south. The low sun heats it up good during the day and the thick cement columns hold a lot of thermal mass. The slightly cold hardy aloes and cactus love it down there. They get great winter colors and if I get a freak cold front , they are not far from the door to my woodshop. I separate my cactus between who is a tropical cactus (inside now), who takes cold but no damp. who is Zone 9, I will move some in and out for cold fronts, some get indoor perches for the whole winter. Some get covered over outside. It is a mixture of treatments. Now they are just getting moved close to where they are going. God there are a lot of them. Many are cold hardy and don't move at all unless it starts poring rain for many cold days and then I haul them under a overhang..

Ohhhh! I have a Terrarium/Vivarium I think the Earth Star might find itself at home in that case! Thank you for telling me! Humidity is 50-70 in there atm. I just started this guy a few weeks ago and still trying to make it less ugly. Maybe I could put it under the bench in my shade garden? (Which actually gets 4-5 hours of direct sunlight, I think I want to put a japanese maple in there and or do a sheet of lattice over the top. On the north side of the house) ~ Another shot of the plants (spent 130 dollars ._. Gaaahhh ) I got some of the chick/hens particularly because they have so many babies on them, I was going to snip them and get them rooted so I had in total I guess 12 rossets of each so I could do some kind of pattern. Tomorrow I plan to go pick some leaves off pretty much all of them and get them in a saucer of sand/rocks and get them propagating. Below is the front of my house---it's still pretty blah. I'm thinking of eventually doing a line of succulants all the way up the driveway to it. That's so much better than it was. It was all hollybushes and most of them were dead. Just got the begonia's and the two palms I'm thinking of moving (one palm on the far end by the rock, got it on clearance for 3 dollars! usually 30! It was all dead except for one new green leaf in the center). The Agava in the lower center of the picture still in the pot I planted two of last year, and they survived one freeze (the center leaves did) but the second freeze killed the entire plant so I know they can't do to well out here. However the spikey agava in the center of the picture wasn't phased at all by the freeze. My landscaping skills are so bad, haha. Where the palm and tiny succulant is in the little square now was a big dead hollybush. We just bought our home one year ago, it's our first home. We've both been renting for 10+ years and to be honest, I didn't realize how much I missed having property. Also as far as the front goes, if anyone has any suggestions. There's the green 'liner' that came with the property, thinking of taking those out in place of something else. Either the bricks I have a lot of, or actual stones. I'll be tilling the backyard for a Pernnial Garden and should get lots of orange rocks out of it.