Good work Sluice. Nice to see the progression How many are you grafting this year? I keep checking mine and hoping to see signs of life. Mostly quiet so far. Keith

Its going to be very warm here tommorrow, 87F!! Looks like we will have 4 days in the 80s in a row (monday-thursday). So far the lowest temp of the month is 44F and the lowest in the forecast is 44F. The lows for tonight and tommorrow night wont even get out of the 60s! Greg... Glad you like my camellia and the new spots for my staghorn ferns. The butia is growing slow, but it is really healthy. Laura... Cant wait to see some pics of those plumeria blooms. My divine has an inflo comming up and its really liking the sun too (but is burned a little from the heat). I thought that my area would be cooled down really significantly, but I guess not because we are in the 80s. I saw 3 bees and many other wasps out today as well as a moth, a butterfly, and I noticed my variegated vincas are blooming now. All the street trees (bradford pears) are blooming now and the forests are getting green. Spring is here for sure, but I think this weather is more summer-like. 87F is about average for july in my area. I cant believe you got to 90F already. Sounds like beach weather to me! And you can tell the birds are making there nests now since half my spanish moss is gone. So I had to take the rest off the tree for now and I will put it back on when there nesting season is over. I really hope there arent any frosts, its still kind of early to have all these plants out, but its just so warm! The AC is now on! Good luck and enjoy the heat!

Thirteen days till the swap! We still need a couple more people to volunteer to bring some kind of a beverage, and with this many people we need two or three people to bring tables for the food. Also, if you dont want to sit on the ground, we need more people to bring some chairs. With 31 people planning to come, and a bunch of guests, surely there must be some people who can help with these things! Heres the current list of whos bringing what. Please post if you can bring any of the things we still need. ~ Beverage lemonade, iced tea, something else? [Need some more names here!] MstyWoods LindseyinEvergreen - Thai iced tea ~ Styrofoam cups TreeBarb ~ Paper plates MstyWoods ~ Napkins Skybird ~ Plastic silverware Jennifer/jclepine ~ Ice Angel ~ Chairs: 4 treebarb [30 - 40 people and four chairs! We need more folks!] ~ Tables: [Need 2 or 3 people bringing tables to be sure we have enough for the food!] If you still havent gotten the email from Angel with her address, shes posted HER address just above, so email YOUR email address to her. BE SURE to include your screen name so she knows who you are! If you dont send your email address to her, you WILL NOT get her address for the swap! (And if you sent your address already but didnt get the email from her, send it again!) Heres the list of people who are, or hope to be coming as I have it right now! Im once again posting locations for the people whos locations I know that are out of the immediate Metro Denver area so if anyone wants to arrange to carpool, theyll know whos near them. [And I once again encourage all those who havent yet done it to ENABLE PERSONAL MESSAGING on your GW account! Aside from posting a message on the swap thread and hoping the person sees it, PMing is the only way to contact somebody should the need come up! Enabling personal messaging DOES NOT make your email address public! There are a LOT of you who still dont have PMing enabled, and there is absolutely no way to contact you should something come up!] If youre not on the list but should be, post or post again that youre comingbut even more importantly, send Angel your email address! Im keeping an unofficial list of attendees, but I am not keeping a list of email addresses this time, so Angel is the one you need to get your email address to! AlmondStriations - Erie AngelinaGarden - Angel AutoDidact Azura - (with son and possibly guest) Bekajoi (has a van for possible car pooling from COS) Bexay6211 [may not be able to come Bexay, hows your knee?] BindweedBenders ButterCup 2010 Cyndigo (Boulder) GinnyTrcka (and friend) GJMancini (and sister) GreenBean08 - Amy (Falcon, NE of COS) GreenShark (COS) H Geist HighAltTransplant - Bonnie (Silt!) JCLepine - Jennifer (and significant other?) (Nederland) KarengGrow - (Black Forest, willing to bring others from the Colorado Springs area) KvenKat (and maybe husband) Laura42 (Ft, Collins) LindsyinEvergreen (Evergreen) LuckyBottom - (Kersey, east of Greeley) MayberryGardener MstyWoods PolygonumTinctorium (near Monument Hill) PowerMuffin (+ 1 or maybe 2) (Longmont guess you dont need to carpool! ;-) ) ProvoGirl SerpentMoon Sherri09 (Boulder) Skybird TequilaGirl (Castle Rock) TreeBarb (near Ft. Lupton) If somebody is finding this for the first time, its not too late to decide to come! As long at theres still time to send your email address to Angel and get a reply from her, its not too late! So even the day before the swap should work, but by the actual day of the swap everybody is going to be too busy to be responding to anybody! In the past we havent done this, but Angel has said that she has a grill (two actually, one gas, one charcoal) that we can use, so if anybody wants to bring something to be grilled, that works too this time. Just be sure its something that wouldnt take too long to heat since eating is the first thing we do! ~~~ HERE, AGAIN, IS ALL THE BASIC INFORMATION! ~~~ The swap is on Sunday, May 23rd at 11:00, at Angels in Longmont! ~~ When you arrive there will be an area designated to put the plants youve brought, with a separate place to put the plants you have earmarked for someoneand, of course, there will be somewhere to put the food! \[Just a hint for those of you who have earmarked plants! Ive found it works well to write the screen name of the person on a paper bag and put the plants in the bag. If theres more than one bag for someone I just write "1 of 2" on it to be sure nothing gets missed! It makes it easy for everyone to find the ones that are for them, and its easier to carry the bags than to carry a bunch of separate pots. Small boxes would work too!\] ~~ There will be a table with a sign in sheet, and its fun to keep track of who actually showed up, so please be sure you sign in! There will also be name tags on the sign in table, so please make a name tag for yourself (and your guests) which includes your RMG screen nameso we know who you are! \[Put YOUR screen name on your guests tags tooso we know who they belong to!!!\] ~~ We start the swap with the pot luck! Your dish can be absolutely anything! Hot dishes, cold dishes, appetizers/finger foods, salads, sweetsanything you think others would enjoy! Homemade dishes, if you have time, are always good! Please bring a serving spoon if it will be needed for your dish, and also please make some provision for it to be covereda lid if its that type of dish, or plastic wrap, or whatever. One other request! I love sweets, so I definitely dont want to put too much of a damper on the dessert type things, but at a couple of the swaps we seemed to wind up with mostly sweets, so if youre trying to decide between that or something else, lean toward the something else! ~~ After eating and talking while we eatand perusing the plants that are availablewe have everybody who has plants earmarked for others make sure the plants get to the right people. This also happens to some extent during the arriving/eating/talking/perusing part! ~~~ Then we do the actual swapping! Before we start picking plants, well once again have everybody who brought plants briefly tell what they brought so everyone knows whats available to help them decide what theyd like to have. Then everyone draws a number for the first and second rounds of picking plantsthat way everyone has a pretty good chance to get the one or two things they want the most. Then we open it up to just walking around and picking out whatever anyone wantsthe free\-for\-all part! ~~ Please be sure the plants you bring are labeled one way or another! Either stick a tag in the pot, or staple a piece of paper with the name onto the pot, or just write the name of the plant on the pot with a marker or crayonat past swaps some people have made up adhesive labels with the plant name and basic information and stuck them on the potsI make up little strips of paper on the computer with the info and include one with each plant. Anything to ensure the person getting the plant will know what they have when they get home. Its easy to think youre gonna remember the names of the things you take homeand even easier to forget them by the time you do get home!!! ~~ ANDour primary RMG plant swap rule! Nobody needs to have any plants to be welcome at the swap! There are always plenty of plants to go around (I have just over 200 myself!), and we get together as much to swap gardening talk and friendship as to swap plantsso come regardless of how much you do or don't have to bring! ~~~ Please plan to thoroughly water the plants youre bringing the DAY BEFORE the swap so theyll have time to drain well enough to be easy to transport, yet be wet enough to not be wilting at the swap or while people are taking them home! One more thing! Its a really good idea to bring a box/tray or two to carry your booty back home in! If the plants youre bringing are in something, dont let anybody else snag it, and you can use that to refill with the new goodies! If there are any questions, NOW is the time to be asking them! Pray for good weatherand NO wind! See you all soon, Skybird

Gee.....it's been so long since I had any mangoes that would be considered "extra" that I forget what I do with them. No, seriously, I have had bumper crops over the years. I have lots of people (family and friends) to feed; I have a small, honor system fruit stand in front of my house; there are many local customers that come by and buy in quantity and I do lots of dehydration of the extra fruit to last for when there are no mangoes. I was intending to start doing some shipping last season to folks on the Forum, but Mother Nature saw to it that that didn't happen. I would consider sending out fruits this year again, if there are any to send.....but I have come to realize that it is a pretty big pain in the butt to have to do all that packing and shipping.....just based on my limited shipping of fruit this past year. I do still invite anyone in the area to stop by to sample mangoes or lychees available and to buy what they wish based on what is available. I had started a list last year of those interested in perhaps getting mangoes shipped. I still have the list somewhere and I'll be happy to add anyone interested to that list in case I do have fruit available and the time for shipping it. BTW, mangoes usually begin ripening in early May......Rosigold, possibly in March or April....but the bulk of the crop really doesn't start until end of May/ early June and runs through end of August or early Spetember. There are fruits available into October but you have to fight the damned critters for the late season mangoes as they really focus on the few trees that still have fruit on them. Harry