Congratulations! I know this feels really good. There's something so satisfying about staring down at the freshly turned earth, with a new rose tucked into its place in the garden. Off topic ... if you are available on October 4, we would love to have you come to our fall Garden Social. Many other GW members come, and we always have a lot of fun. Email me through My Page and I'll give you all the details. Connie

Hi Gang, Thanks for the nice words. Well, the Hydro growing H. kerrii varieg. seems quite slow. I only bought it last Sept. & don't really see new growth yet. However, can you see it's rather lopsided? Because of that, it has to be on the edge of something like in the photo. Well, where you see it is on the edge of some furniture (& in front of a window), btwn my bedroom & the kitchen. I come around this corner a lot & fast & I bumped it accidentally & the whole thing went flying. Wet leca stones everywhere, they're round so they roll, right? Can you guess that the branch that broke was the vine w/ 3 peduncles that hadn't yet set bud? Arggggggggg. I tried to save that vine but it was leafless so of course, it didn't make it. I don't know how old this is but am guessing it's quite old, Âcause these are such slow growers. The particular Hydro supplier I used & who came to speak at my Indoor Gardening Society last fall was: www.creativehydroponics.com Creative Hydroponics 379 Amwell Rd Hillsborough, NJ 08844 Hope it's OK to list this here, I have no financial interest in them, just bought their plant. But 'cause this is so interesting & I had more Leca stones, I've started two other small Hoyas in Hydro. Helps that I have tiny lattice type pots, so I've set the lattice pots in a larger cup w/ Leca stones on the bottom & keep an inch of water in the bottom. I don't have meters for them but water every couple of days & they're doing well. I'll try to get pix maybe in a few days, but it's some H. nummularioides & H. bella. Numm does OK for me in mix, but I've lost several Bellas over the years including a beautiful variegate which is hard to find. Bellas can be very water fussy, they want more than normal moisture, but not too wet -- quite a difficult balance IÂve found. Don't know if some of you remember, but some of us have grown H. kerrii varieg before w/ a lot of trouble. Not only very slow, but often aborts its new leaves, or grows them into the side of a heavy clay pot which will abort them. This Kerri varieg I've noticed has leaves quite close together & then long stretches of bare stem, doesn't really present good spots to cut it. I'd thought I'd try to cut a few pieces make it less lopsided, but doesn't seem so doable right now. Maybe IÂll try that again later in Spring.

thank you for that. I've got things saved people have written about inside, outside and misting. I wasn't set up to do that, have way overspent, am low on energy. It was all I could do to make myself turn back to my plants from other things going on. In due course, I'll try out your method, I'm not set up with any fluorescent light except on my kitchen ceiling, was going to work on that over the winter. Now I looked at the few gallon pots I had, was wondering where to get more, and decided the heck with it, went and bought some plastic half-gallon terra cotta colored pots at the hardware store (no they look like almost a gallon). If roots start growing through the bottom holes of those, I'll deal with it then. I know gallon pots would be better, they are too heavy, take too much potting soil, and have huge holes in the bottom, and I did not feel like looking for any more rocks to plug them. My cuttings have all these roots but no new leaves, so I wasn't sure if I should pot them up. Think I should, and am thinking of even potting up the ones that have bare stems and covering with soda bottles, and see what happens. But pot them in what soil? I've got contingency plans and shelves ready to move them to the west wall of my bedroom that gets only reflected light from the house next door (close), shut the register as far as it will go, and get a humidifier when I start to wean them out of the bottles. If I get to that point. Thank you for sharing your experience. I don't know if I should use pure potting soil or mix some peat and vermiculite in with it, been reading about H2O2, wonder if that will work instead of capstan when I start seedlings next spring inside, wonder if I should use it on my cuttings, tried some with one that is growing white moldy stuff on it, nothing happened with that, people talk about ml, how do I measure that? I read 1 tbsp then fill a cup with water. What H2O2? The regular kind you buy in the brown bottle at the drugstore? This aimed at anyone who may happen to read, not you, Angel. I've been following michelle_co's posts, and everything different ones write when they've had success, she has to bring hers in now, too, my situation is just a little bit different. I'm at a critical point now. I will watch them carefully and may have to wing it on some of it. I think every cutting but one that looks iffy in the medium George Mander recommended to me has rooted, 8 of those. Maybe that rose just roots easily. I had it going earlier, didn't see roots but it (and another kind) was growing new leaves, then the heat got them all. My rooted ones I stuck August 13, not quite two months, the temps outside were up and down like a yoyo but not like the heat wave we had earlier. It was the medium, the pop bottles, and luck I guess so far. I'm really scared to get any sun on them too soon. They were getting just a little sun outside, but it was cooler by then. I'll take the caps off the bottles for a few days before I take the bottles off, and then only for maybe about 4 hours a day for a week or so, it's so darn confusing, don't want to jostle those delicate leaves by too much off and on.

Kim - Not a problem at all. I think you should just go for whatever looks interesting. If you're worried, just don't order anything terribly expensive. Haworthia aren't that difficult to grow. Some grow slower and are more difficult than others, but that's just like any succulent. I just get them anyway! For a while, many succulent species were intimidating and I thought I would never grow them. But when I finally got them, I realized they really weren't so bad. =) Sinha - My mix is made of white granite grit (grower size), Turface, and fir bark (blended reptibark). The five photos above show its size and composition. I do customize the ratios of the mix for each plant species. Most important is the mix to be well aerated and not hold too much water. I am fertilizing my succulents and am using liquid Miracle Gro 12-4-8. It's not very fancy, but is easy to get locally and is affordable.