Being a fellow northerner with a lot of cacti and succulents (in my case several hundred), I would say that you will need to do one of a couple of things to keep your plants healthy. 1) Appropriate sun in the summer season is a must, i.e. half a day or more outside. Otherwise your plants will eventually all get leggy. Your plants will probably need some working up to sun after being inside all winter (even though they are desert plants, they can be sunburned in the spring just as you can). This will keep their growth nice and tight. 2) Avoid the trap of a dark but warm house during the winters. This is why your Aloe (a juvenna, I think) is so tall - it was warm enough for it to try to grow but without enough light. I have two solutions for this that I use. First, you could use supplimental lights, which are kept quite close to the plant (i.e. a few inches). Eventually the top of your Aloe might grow into an appropriate shape and you might be able to cut the new growth off and root it separately. The second strategy is to keep the plants cool enough during the winter that they don't try to grow very much. I keep my aloes in my basement under a shop light where it is about 55 degrees during the winter. This has been quite successful in preventing leggy growth. Looking back, it appears I just repeated some of the material joscience posted. I agree with what jo suggests, with the added comment that because of your geographic location you will have to take extra steps to keep your plants healthy. Unfortunately, a nice windowsill won't quite do it, unlike in some areas. It has taken me several years to work out which succulents can survive winters here under which conditions. Jo, aren't you in California? By the way, is the little cactus in the top a Notocactus leninghausii?

I have been going through all my plant files and doing some reorganization. In doing this I now have a name for the ground cover in photo #9. Its name: Veronica x 'Blue Reflections'. Believed to be a hybrid between V. liwanensis and V. pectinata. Purchased from High Country Gardens Santa Fe NM. in 1998. They still show it in their catalog. Botann you now have a name. Dave

Will - No way am I offended that you refer to a plant with a name I don't think is correct, and you should only change your plant names if you! think it is the right thing to do, not because of anything I have said. Dave - not sure what you mean by amateur collectors, guys like yourself and Will both have a garden full of conifers, are members of the ACS, and participate on this conifer forum on a regular basis, sounds like your pretty true collectors to me and not just the average Joe who likes to have the odd conifer in his garden who you could well imagine not giving a fig as to the correct name of his plants. Yes I'm sure you are correct that there are mix ups all over the place, you only have to look at a Czech, German, or Polish collectors list to see many conifer names from the US incorrectly written. of course these things happen, even I get the occasional name wrong :0) I know it must seem tedious, but it is, and should be important to all who have a passion for conifers to try and ensure we are all abiding by the correct plant names, there is already far too much confusion as it is. You don't have to go running out into the yard to change your name tags every time someone says a particular name you're using is wrong, if possible you need to check out the info you are given is correct. I take notes and go through my collection list and tags about once a year and then make any necessary corrections, certainly saves a lot of hassle. Cheers, Stephen.

dixieboy, Gotta love that Butia and those Cycads.It's hard to grow both of them even as far south as I live.It's not nessaserly the cold that kills them here,it's the winter rain and cold.We get most of our rain during the winter months.Summertime here is very hot very humid with very little rain,except when those thunderstorms come through that dont do anything any good.Love the pics.as usual. Randy