gbig If I were you and was going to aerate 10,000square feet of lawn I would be sure to tell myself that using a rental aerator that is usually rented out for four hours, your not going to have time to make swiss cheese. By the time you get the machine home, teach yourself how to run it then need to return it, sorry no way your going to do it. You either need to rent it for longer or try a little trick where you rent it. On a friday evening go up and rent the machine about 6 in the evening. Tell the guy you won't be able to return it before the store closes. He will usually let you keep it overnight with no further charge. Worked for me a couple times. I bought the Bluebird aerator from Home Depot a few years ago that I rented. Today I aerated 5,000 square feet of my lawn and it took me 4 hours of hard work. Tomorrow I overseed into the holes.Don't rake the cores up. The cores break down and is the best thing for your lawn. It's just like spreading soil over your lawn. Gets the microbes working on your lawn. lawndivot

I bought American Seed orange Tithonia/Mexican Sunflower seeds but the description and planting instructions are for Sunflower Solar Power F1. So now I have seedlings that need to be transplanted, but I don't know if I"ll be getting the orange Tithonia I had hoped for in my color palette or more sunflowers that I don't want or maybe something else entirely.

Hi Lena! These tropical hibiscus (hibisci?) don't grow as large as the hardy varieties, especially in my climate. but mine are off to a good start i must admit, this one is the smallest of the bunch, there are a few that were sown on the same day and they're twice it's size. i do have one i bought at the store which is getting huge, in spite of being told it wouldn't grow much because the dutch growers who sell them treat them with a growth retardant hormone... i think they missed mine for the dose lol i'd like the seedlings to get big, and the store one not to get any bigger, if that makes sense :) about the amount of substrate for adeniums, yes it does give them more stability and consistency of moisture, that is exactly what i was aiming for. low amount of nutrients and moisture but in a greater volume, it stimulates strong root systems for them, though it may not be the most ideal situation for root training. but i don't even think of root training in the first year so... I've found that measuring adeniums in age is less precise than measuring the growth spurts or phases they succesfully went through. for instance my seedlings sown in autumn didn't have a single true growth spurt with the cold winter as their first 6 months. it reduces their "adjusted" age as i like to call it by about a half. a seedling sown in early spring that goes through two or even three growth spurts in the warm season usually looks twice the age of a similar seedling that had a months of cold weather. if that makes any sense (second time :)) ). anyhow, here are a couple more pics with interesting developments from my herd :) this is a pair of twin seedlings (two embryos from the same seed). They are highly unique in leaf form and branch development in my collection. One is a slower grower than the other but otherwise they seem identical. They have poor caudex deveopment, but the overall plant form is very interesting to me and i'm willing to forgive the lack of chubiness :) this is what the larger one looks like now, notice there are bud clusters on every single branch tip. i can't wait to see the blooms,and later hope the smaller one will bloom to compare. two arabicum seedlings. i have a whole tray full of similar plants, loving how their form is developing. all of them are going into hibernation, thank god, so i can put them away and free more space on the windows. grafts. first one was incredibly hard to set up,the scion is a few mm in width and the rootstock is very young. seedling grafted onto rootstock notice how it is pushing out root nodes. i have no idea what to do with it. maybe try and airlayering setup and see if it will really send out roots to then detach it from the stock. two seedlings on one rootstock. i removed the stock bud you can see on the side, to keep all nutrients going to the scions. this plant looks pretty ugly now. i let it grow out because it will be trained in a cascade style in spring. pretty young plant, around a year old now.

Marg, when I plant the sprouted seeds, I put them in cups with holes punched not only in the bottom but around the sides, too. They are kept in aluminum foil roasting pans full of water (or water + fertilizer) at all times and do not allow them to ever dry out. I transplanted the first seedlings to white hydroponic pots since that's the only white ones I could find on-line. The pots have quite a few holes on the sides, so I keep the pools full of water. I tried buying more pools, but it was too late in the season. So most of my seedlings are growing in pots, but they aren't doing nearly as well as those in the pools. Daylilies love water, and growing them in it is not a problem. I haven't experienced any root rot or damp-off. My dogs do sneak a drink out of the pools sometimes, but they know they'll get in trouble if they do. They don't like me getting mad at them. Mosquito Dunks and/or Dawn apparently didn't harm them, but I try to keep a close watch on them when I let them outside, as the pools are right by our patio. I may get a pool just for them and hopefully they'll learn that it's O.K. to drink in that one. Nancy