Many thanks, cactusmcharris. Your suggestion is very valuable. My intention was to remove the "mother" aloe and any "grown-up" siblings when they would become out of proportion. But if any of them don't "behave" I'll remove them all, as you said. At present, I'm not totally pleased with the top-dressing because I don't have enough of the "earth-colored" gravels. When I can have enough of them, I will remove the other pebbles and crushed rocks. But they stay, just for now. Again, many thanks. Xuan

Hey again GG, I don't know the BEST way to prop. Ceropegias, but I know stem or tip cuttings work for some of them. I grow 2 Ceropegias, C. woodii (common string of hearts), the green & the variegate; these form tubers, but also work from tip cuttings. I also grow C. sandersonii, which has never bloomed for me yet, but of which I've shared stem cuttings w/ several folks on here, that's worked OK. Your Photo #30, on the lower left area, shows several seeds pods, can't say if they're from that same plant. If no one here should know the answer, I'd search further online, also check my friend's Ceropegia Journal as I forget if he discusses propagation. Can't tell where in the US you live. Would you be planning to grow these indoors or out?

Hello Pat Thanks for dropping by my post and leave your comments. Re potting medium in these succulent dishes, I used crushed granite (very fine pieces, around 2-3mm in size) and fine pine bark (also in the same size) in the ratio of 2-1 or so (I'm sorry I don't remember exactly the ratio because I made these dishes over a year and my memory is not very good. But that ratio seems 'right' to my eyes.) If you want to use the same thing, you can just judge by looking, ie the medium should not look "dark" meaning too much bark. It should look somewhat "white" meaning more granite. I use that medium for all my succulents. All dishes have drainage holes. Bigger dishes have 4 holes, some others have 2. I always place a little piece of broken clay pot to cover the drainage hole. I fertilize the plants once a month or so with Osmocote, or similar NPK fertilizer. I water the plants in the dry season and/or when there's no rain for 3-4 days in a row. My climate is rather wet but I have never had any rot so I think the medium works fine. Best of luck to your plantings, Pat. Xuan

Wow, so sorry I missed your posts, Buehl and Alice462! I need to check this more often. I'm supposed to get emails when someone posts to avoid this, but that I only received them the first couple of days. Alice, the drawers around my rangetop are, from top to bottom, 6 7/8", 10 1/2", and 10 1/2" tall on the faces. Inside, the top drawer boxes are 3" tall, but have 5" of clearance because of being shorter than the space available. The 2 bottom rows are 6" deep with about 8 1/2" of clearance...So I can put pots and pans that are taller than the drawer box, but they don't scrape the drawer above. Does that make sense? My main sink counter and the breakfast area (30" wide to the left of the single fridge) are at 36" in height. I don't like to go lower around the cleanup sink, because it hurts my back to reach down that low into the sink. But where the mixer is, the island and the rangetop and counters beside are at about 34". We like the lower height for chopping, kneading, rolling, and even putting together sandwiches, etc. It's also better for looking into the mixer and into pots on the stove. I'm a bit over 5'3" and the kids are about my height or smaller (so far), so it works great for all of us. DH works in the kitchen occasionally and it doesn't seem to bother him. If he ever did something that took awhile and he wanted a higher work surface, he could do his working on a butcher block or something that would raise it. I don't have rollouts in this kitchen. I had them in my last and didn't like them. I tried to get too much in the cabinet and things would slide or fall off when I pulled it out. I also didn't like that I lost about 3" of cabinet width to the hardware and the pullout sides. I guess it's the same loss as with using drawers, but I find the higher sides of drawers to be much better, and I don't have to first open a door (or 2) to pull them out. All that said, I may add one rollout to one of the island cabinets, because my bread mixer has very grabby rubber feet and it'd be easier to get out if I could pullout it out and lift. I'm considering changing the doored cabinets in my island to drawers, so that would solve the problem, too. I'm so sorry to be so late in answering your questions. I sure hope you check back!