Before you get jumped on by someone else, I think you made a little typo, Jodi. Light CAN, at times, be the most limiting factor in growing - it's just not ALWAYS the most limiting factor, or the most important factor, and it certainly cannot negate the effects of other limiting factors - you can't make up for a dry or over-fertilized plant by giving it more light. That would be a ridiculous suggestion, as we all agree, I'm sure. The most important factor changes, and if you're working on eliminating limiting factors you'll find they will arise in a succession, but it is always the most limiting factor that is most important. Example - A plant that loves bright sun is doing poorly. It is in the shade, but it is dry and malnourished, and has scale. The obvious most important potential limiting factor to correct is the moisture level. Then, we really have no way of knowing whether light, the malnutrition, or the scale infestation are the next most limiting. If we correct one issue, say light, we may or may not have corrected the next most limiting issue. If we did not, we cannot expect the plant to grow at beyond it's limits. If we DID - if light WAS the next most limiting factor, then the next most limiting issue, after light, becomes the most important. Light is just 'somewhere in the queue'. Don't get me wrong, I'd never try to diminish the importance of light and it's influence on healthy plants, but plants grown in perfect light die quite often from other limiting causes. Since I assume the viability of the organism is the measure by which we judge the importance of limiting factors, it can ONLY be concluded that when plants in perfect light die, light was NOT the limiting factor, it was not king, and it did not negate the limiting effects of other factors. Never, is everything exactly perfect, and as soon as you get one factor as close to perfect as possible, the factor that is farthest from perfect becomes the most important issue to deal with. It takes thousands of parts to build an automobile on an assembly line. The part that is in shortest supply will always have the greatest potential to bring the line to a stop. Replenish the supply of that particular part, and the next part that is in shortest supply claims the greatest potential to bring the line to a stop ....... and so it goes with plants. Keep us posted with pics, Mike. Where do you find the time to take & post so many shots? Good job! Al

LOL @ Robert! Fancy finding you here! I see that your obsession (I mean passion) for all fragrant plants are still going strong. ;) Ok so check this out... that one tiny almost opened blossom I picked off the tree and left in my kitchen, well as I said before it filled the room with sweetness. When DH came home... he was like "I closed all the windows why then do I still smell your flowers?" LOL... this is a man who couldn't tell a rose from a plumeria before he met me and now he's noticing fragrances! So as the night progressed... every so often he would look at me and updated me on the fact that he still could smell the sweet fragrance permeated in the air. My reply... I'm going back to buy another tree today! Granted these are HUGE trees, can grow to 25-30 ft BUT they are slow grower so I'm hoping to enjoy them until they get too big. I'll deal with that day when it comes. :) Now to answer your question... for the first 12 years of my life I grew up in Southeast Asia... before moving back to the East Coast in the States. So my childhood was filled w/ adventures, tropical plants and exotic fruits. You know how much I love my Plumeria babies... but I must say if I can only keep ONE plant, then without a doubt it will be my M. Alba. Thank you for the link... I will study it carefully. Luckily for me it's not hard to find M. Alba where I am. Now what else do you like that you can recommend to me? Let's hear it. :) Kemistry - glad to hear you had a chance to smell M. Alba! For some strange reasons, great scent make me very happy!

My first goal is to get my plants moved from the old house to the new one. We moved from PA to Denver in 2007 and have been renting since then. I don't think I have been on GardenWeb since we moved. I did bring a bunch of things with me that first spring. This spring we are buying a house not too far from where we have been renting. I need to dig a holding bed as soon as we close and start moving my stuff. I have a few things I would like to find a permanent home for before digging (like lavender) but most things just need to stay alive. Also the house needs paint so I won't be doing any foundation beds until after that happens. I hope to spend spring and summer digging and mulching and preparing for next spring. Oh, and there are fruit trees. :) We'll have apple, pear and plum. I think one of the apples is going to be a bit of a sacrificial victim of my learning to prune. Really I don't think I could make it worse short of killing it. The last two years I've been only barely motivated to do any gardening. Getting ready to buy this place and have my very own yard to do with as I please has really brought my energy and interest levels back up. :)

Lot's of leaf loss here and out of bloom for a while now. I hate it that it won't rebloom until next year at this time. I think it's a lck of sunlight around my parts that causes the leaf loss..Oh well:-( Purple, I never heard of a town called Opp..Cool name! I thought that was the abbreviation for youur town.lol It sounds like a place where you can hear a swarm of bees from a mile away and the sounds of a hummin birds feathers flap as it drinks from your food source! What I would do without noise pollution and the every day cars backed up on the roads. To hear the frog peepers make their music on a first warm spring night. We use to until development took over. I once stayed at my sisters house which is a mile into the woods in the country. It was so dead silent there to sleep, that I could here buzzing noise in my ear all night. I never slept thatn night! A place where you can plant an Osmanthus in the ground and enjoy it's size for years to come! Mike