Nikki, I'm as green as 'Little Warty' with plant envy, although I'm getting a Haworthia and a Gasteria next month. Those are some nice plants which should do well for you. Your mix looks particularly wholesome and porous. A note on punctuation with names - a species name is in lower case without apostrophe marks, thus your plants Gasteria excelsa and Haworthia pumila. However, hybrids or selections especially chosen for a desirable trait from a seed batch (called cultivars (cultivated variety)), can be named (and it's an official process with the plant mandarins) and is written Gasteria 'Little Warty' or, like your intergeneric hybrid (x)Gastrolea, Gastrolea 'Green Ice'.

Looks like a very nice selection -- congratulations! When you say "PICEA alba 'Globosa'", do you mean Abies alba? (even so, I'm not familiar with that particular cultivar....) The Picea rubens seems fairly unusual too. Did you go shopping with a list of things to get, or just picked up whatever nice stuff was to be had ? Would sure love to see some photos. Lastly, that "10.5 hrs round trip" from NH sounds like you're giving us a puzzle to solve, to identify the nursery you went to. Its quite a distance -- could potentially bring you as far away as Quebec. But I suspect you probably went more south than north -- any other clues?? Thanks, and happy holidays to you too.

May I make a suggestion? Hoya imbricata likes it very wet. yes, this species grows in very wet conditions and then as it matures, it develops into a clinging vine that will climb even on cement. Start the cutting(s) in a hanging basket (six inch pot size is fine) and fill it with LFS mixed with perlite, orchid bark-fine grade. Ball the stem end for where you plan to insert into the media around a ball of LFS and plant=wedge this ball into your loose but wet media. This plant will develop roots quickly and then start making searcher vines seeking places to cling to. At this time, you can tie a piece of fern totem, redwood totem, cedar fence section, etc next to it. The clinging vine will start to make feeder roots attach itself to its host. Do not sever the connection right away. Instead grab some LFS around the base of the stems that have reached from the pot and slowly do a reverse air layer in making the new area grow roots into this wet moss. As soon as your host support is covered and roots are visible, you can make the severing from the pot. But keep this vines wet. They easily flower and side branch. I also recommend placing a nylon stocking filled with MagAmp and osmocote/nutricote and hang it above the totem, wood or stake and water and wet this stocking when doing so.

Your boy sounds like one of the three intact toms who showed up on my farm a couple of summers ago. One of the toms was completely tame, one was completely feral, and then there was Feather - semi-feral or timid stray. New cats normally show up on my farm one at a time, making it reasonably easy to sequester them from the other cats by putting the newbie in my bedroom/bath area during the integration process. When Feather showed up with the other two, though, I couldn't keep them together in the bedroom/bath because they were all too aggressive with each other. So for a while, Feather had to stay in the master bath by himself. Unfortunately, he was such an emotionally unstable boy that the seclusion drove him over the edge of reasonable behavior. Every time I entered the bathroom to visit him, he would hiss at me. Then he would approach me and rub all over me, rolling in delight on the floor next to me, purring up a storm while I gave him a full body massage. But when it was time for me to leave the bathroom, he would viciously attack me. He simply couldn't handle being left alone. The attacks on me quit as soon as I was able to get him out of that bathroom and integrate him into the rest of the household. Now, two years later, Feather is still emotionally volatile and is still problematic with several of the other cats, but he is much improved. He'll never be what I would consider psychologically normal, but he's close enough. I don't allow him outdoors because I believe he would become frightened and overly aggressive toward the other cats again. At least indoors I can monitor his behavior and prevent him from harrassing the other cats too much. I can also put him into time-outs with one or two of his cat buddies, if need be. Your boy sounds like an emotionally sensitive animal who is being badly stressed by his solitary confinement at night. I suggest you try to find an alternative for him so that he doesn't have to feel so alone. You might consider bringing him into your home and keeping him in a room with a screen door when you're not able to monitor his activity with the other cats. The screen will allow him to view the goings-on of the household and interact with the other animals from the safety of his side of the screen so that he doesn't feel so isolated. Good luck with him. Laurie