Hey, I live in Cape Coral too. We buy our citrus trees from Home Depot. They have some really nice trees, many varieties, including 3 or 4 varieties of lime. I just watched the store closely to get trees freshly deivered from the nursery when their stock got low, rather than buying trees that had been sitting in the store for weeks already. The ones we bought are doing fantastic. Dave

Bill H--I hope you are still around. We live in OTOTW. We bought our attached villa in September. So far, we love it. The units are well-insulated and we never hear our neighbor. We have 2BR, 2BA, living room/dining area, Florida room, eat-in kitchen and screened porch. It has a 1-1/2 car garage and attic storage. All appliances including the washer and dryer came with it. It's plenty of room. I think ours is around 1200 sqft. Prices are running between the high 70's to low 100,000 for the attached villas. You can find some good bargains if you are patient and spend lots of time looking. There are single family homes, and villas with 2 units, 3 units, 4 units, etc. per building. If we'd seen the 2 unit homes we probably would have bought one of those. For Sale signs are not allowed which is a bummer since you can't tell! There are tons of activities, clubs and classes to take. There are 2 or 3 golf courses, 2 restaurants and a coffee shop in the community, a library, several pools (one indoor) and a health and fitness center. The people are really friendly. It was a little difficult for me to get used to only seeing older people. At first I thought I was in a remake of the movie "Cocoon". haha! We moved here from another town, and Ocala isn't very large but has all the amentities of a larger town. Lots of restaurants, a nice mall (with a larger one being built right now). We haven't been yet, but Silver Springs Park is just on the other side of town. They have some pretty top-notched entertainers perform there. If you have specific information you'd like to know, please e-mail me. I don't sell real estate nor am I employed by OTOTW, by the way.

Laura & MyerMike..... Well, well, well.....like running into old friends at a party! Great to know you guys are still around. Good to read your comments. So...yep, killed all my Adeniums, back a few years ago. My loss. Now I know to move my butt faster when cold weather is about to hit. I have had some successes besides my failures. Caudex/Fat-trees (Bursera fagaroides & Operculicarya decaryi, Operc. platypus) are fattening up very quickly, and trunks tripled diameters since I first bought them. Note to Adenium growers: If you want to grow easy plants without the headaches that Adenium can bring....try the trees that I just mentioned. I grow all three trees "hard", in gritty mix, no water except when it rains. I force them to break dormancy in late March, and stick them on the back porch, in full sun, when small leaves start to appear. They stay outside, in hot sun, until leaves turn gold and fall off. Then dry storage in light ( trunks are photosynthetic) until spring. Mike....I no longer grow figs. I won't go through the trouble anymore. Weather in NYC winters has become too severe for containerized figs and I lost all my expensive, and rare varieties back in 2014. Growing in NYC can be very challenging because the growing season is so damn short, and winters are dark and dreary. Not great conditions for ideal Adenium culture. This winter, I am going to put Adeniums under supplemental LED lighting, and see if this helps. Gave up on growing Clivia - too expensive, too slow growing, not enough supplies of desired varieties, and I refuse to spend hundreds of dollars on a flowering-size plant, that I may kill. Over the years, I perfected my skills for killing plants, and I can do it much more quickly and efficiently now. I kill only the best. I just bought some Iochroma seeds (a type of blue-flowering Brugmansia/Angel's Trumpet), and I'll see if this species survives. Plumeria/Toba's Fire/Embers: Doing just fine and makes plenty of new growth each season. Now, the original stick has grown to about 5 feet and subdivided into three equal-sized branches. Before heading back to NYC, I'll throw this Plumie into the ground, for some better root run. So...now you're up to speed. Laura, your plants, the culture, and the staging are exceptional, and the extra grooming work that you do, sure shows. Show-quality specimens in fact, and nice to see what plants should look like for display. Best regards, Frank NYC/7b

I'd like to try container gardening, would be nice to have a couple of tomato plants up here near the house to grab one for a sandwich or dinner then have all the canning tomatoes in the back. Do you do it in a 5 gal bucket or? That's a good idea about the mounds, might try that sometime. Right now I've got a dry river - sort of like was mentioned above - with the bed sloping towards the center from each side and then out. We essentially have the same thing under the water spouts so I just made a mini version of that. Living in a log cabin, Every. Single. Thing. has to be sloped away from the house and this was no exception (this particular bed is off one of the front porches). We have to keep the moisture level below a certain percentage in the basement so that the logs above stay as dry as possible. This helps keep the powder post beetles and termites out. Termites give me the heebie jeebies *shudders*