Nathan Thank you for comment on 'then & now' thread. I know that many are able to grow succulents much better & faster. That's why I read every post, and post some of mine-to compare & learn. I kept them in cold room for 'practical' reason - have a new place, but didn't move in yet, just 90% of my plants. So in order not to have to pay astronomical $$$ to heat 2 houses, I had to keep temps down. I did have the supplemental lighting set up for few hrs/day. I am sure it could have been more, but again-had to watch $$$ too. Temps were set @49F, and plants did very well. Besides succulents, I have there f. Benjamina, 4 pots of figs (kept those in bsmt. in order to keep dormant - now they are leafing out), boston ferns, 6 olives, 7 angels trumpets (Brugmansia) and few other. I do have some casualties: 3 of my euphorbias are gone, and Meyer lemon. I think (not sure) that they were just too cold, or maybe should been watered even less in col temps. I know that soil is good, very well draining. But I noticed that many plants actually look great, some better than when I had them in warmer house - definitely less water (I tend to water too much) was great for them. I watered approx. every second 'visit' & that would be approx. 3weeks. Few grew very leggy, but that's to be expected if not enough sun. So those will get their 'heads chopped off' as soon as it get warm. Yay, more plants. BTW, I have at least 20 pots of jades, all of them grown from cuttings or fallen leaves. Few of them are very unruly and there is going to be lots more cuttings. Even if there were occasional shrivelled leaves (just few), I am sure it was still better than rotted roots. Photo of few in Nov. 2013 (have to update!) Rina ...sheesh, that's long read....sorry! This post was edited by rina_ on Wed, Mar 19, 14 at 13:35

Thank you, Norma, for the advice! I have learned so much from you already from your past posts and I know that your wisdom is held in the highest regard here on GW. Hi Puglvr - I'm still learning to grow them and I think I'm in the process of slowly losing my jovibarba and one of the aloes. :-( They were victims of a previous potting into very sandy soil, I'm afraid. It's been a constant learning process but I'm so glad that there's such a great group here on GW! Josh - I don't have a camera right now, and there are some pictures of jades that I'd love to share with you :-P In the meantime, here are some pictures that I took two or three weeks ago -- can you tell I love succulents that form rosettes?! :-) This echeveria has formed into a really pretty emerald-colored clump with one large "mother" rosette. I thought this one was a goner from the peat mix at HD. It dropped nearly all of its leaves back in June, but has rebounded nicely and is forming new baby rosettes on the stems and even flowered! This jovibarba is flowering as its last gasp of life... I think I watered it too much when it was sitting in sand and I think it's rotting because the rosettes are kind of shriveling up and dying. ... and from the planter of semps... Hopefully they'll make it through the winter outside!

yummy, I agree with 6-8 weeks as noted above, but since I don't know how you grow your transplants nor how fast they'll grow I'll just add that I like to set out ones that are about 6-9 inches tall. As to the question about what constitutes a Brandywine, one first has to think of the three known family ones which are: Yellow Brandywine Red Brandywine Brandywine ......and there's no known relationship between the three of them. If you look in any SSE YEarbook you can see many listings for Brandywine this or that, meaning, Glick's, Pawers and on and on. And just as with the various Mortgage Lifters they usually indicate the name of the person who grew a Brandywine or Mortgatge Lifter and attached their name to it. And then there's the amusing part of it. There's one called Brandywine (Pawers), which is the result of a typo that's persisted since it was Roger Wentling of PA who listed it and his SSE code would then be PA WE R, just as mine from NYS state would be NY MA C. When Brandywine has been part of a natural cross and then a selection from that hybrid taken out to the OP state then sometimes Brandywine becomes part of the name such as Liam's one or the OTV one. If you want to know more about the history of various brandywines, pure ones or others, I suggest you go to Victory Seeds and read the article written by Craig LeHoullier. He did the family ones and I did the others and the article needs updating but both of us have had other priorities in getting around to doing that. Hope that helps. Carolyn

Remove the moss. Make sure the pots are up on pebbles or something in those trays because they may well be wicking water up to the roots, effectively drowning them (and you're probably watering too often anyhow, except maybe for the Fukien tea). To provide more humidity, trays must be much wider than pots - regular saucers are only to catch 'watering' water. Yellow leaves does usually mean things are too wet, so back off the frequency and let some of the soil dry between waterings. Junipers are outdoor trees, even in Canada, providing they have proper winter protection, so while it's too late now to put yours outside - it'll be shocked by the weather as it didn't go dormant in Nov. thru now gradually - if it's still alive in Oct. I hope you'll have researched how to take care of it then and have somewhere outside to put it. Do put all out in May if at all possible... and I know what you said, but that's why it's a bad idea to buy them before researching. If those pebbles are glued down, get them off entirely so you can see what's going on with the soil... There's no room here for an instant course in bonsai, never mind for 3 trees, so you'll have to do some learning on your own, though whether or not the trees will wait is another story. Very high light is extremely important for those trees, and you need to look at special fluorescents (not just "gro lites") for many hours a day right over their tops or they won't do well at all. Go look at Bonsai4me.com, look at www.bonsaihunk.com, evergreengardenworks.com for starters, and then go to http://ibonsaiclub.forumotion.com (terrific forum with experts and much more activity than here).