Its funny cause the trigona gets full Sun and the leaves are the only red on it that's why I'm kinda iffy as to what kind it is...but then again most of my plant's are mutants Any how..Lol Tried e-mail ing you stush, don't kno if YOU got it I'm not that tech savvy LOL If u tell me what plant YOU like I'll let you kno if i have another or a clipping or a pup or something to give you. Beautiful sunny day TODAY, makes me wanna take a ride to the plant store and see what misfits I'll come home with! -Lets just hope they ALL fit in my scooter!

> unless you are refilling the water level daily - does it matter to the plants how fast the excess water evaporates? Fast over one day, or Slow over several days, but the same amount of moisture either way. You assume with hydroton at the bottom the water will evaporate over, say, a day, then the hydroton will be dry till the next watering. That does not need to happen. You can have enough water underneath (and enough hydroton to raise the pots so they are not in a puddle), so that the stronger evaporation still last for the whole time between waterings. Then humidity will be both higher and long lasting. > I guess the downside is that [hydroton is] much more expensive In my case, I bought a big bag a growstones without having a clear plan for them other than a little experiment here and there - so whenever I say hydroton, I actually mean growstones in my case, and I already have a bag. But you are right, of course. Re comparing Chula's smallest pots. I exchanged emails with Harry, and here is the summary of all the differences: 2.25 NCUV: uneven bottom (I put insect screen on the bottom of my pots, and looks like this may be a [small] issue); annoying top ridge; no legs/risers; lighter weight; more see-through. 2.25 SLOTS: more level bottom; smooth top /no ridge; little leg risers; heavier; more opaque. Both have some good advantages - I might just get half of each. > There seem to be two main overlaps with Hoya people. Orchids and Succulents. Good observation. And people who like hoyas with succulent leaves also tend to (surprise!) like succulents. I am not among them, by the way. Hoya kerrii or obovata do very little for me. I mean I'd grow them, but they wouldn't raise my pulse like many others do. Which probably explains why my succulents and cacti combined pots could look better than they do, AND I have little desire to do anything about it. Anyway, that's a tangent. Doug, thanks for chiming in - I thought GG and I lost others a long time ago here. :-) > There is a certain type of personality, that dips their toe in and is quickly up to their neck. The byline of my plants photo album on facebook says very tongue-in-cheek "I can quit any time, OK?" :-) I definitely feel the orchid attraction. What's pulling me back a bit is how ugly most of them look out of bloom (unlike many hoyas!) The leaves are nothing to write home about. When I mentioned this at an Orchid Society meeting, one woman replied, "Eugene, you just need A LOT of orchids, and then something will always be in bloom to distract you from the ugly foliage". HAHAHA, looks like they heard it all before and are well prepared with a perfectly logical "let's submerge to the neck" kind of answer. I have 9 orchids, but there's space on the stand which I bet will not remain empty forever. Back to hoyas... > I have to vote against the hydroton as a replacement for egg crate as I have been there and done that. The biggest problem was having the roots grow through the pots and attach themselves to the hydroton. Well, as you said, the stability insert helps with this. Those roots will have to grow through the insect netting (I'll probably have that depending on the size of the drain holes), out the pot, then around the stability insert pocket, find those holes (they are small and few from the looks of it), and into the hydroton last. They wouldn't attach too firmly, I guess, because I'd be taking the insert out of the tray once a month or so for their showers, and maybe more often for other reasons like watering or draining. > the roots grow through the pots and attach themselves to the hydroton, which makes them very hard to re-pot when the need arises. I imagine you try to dislodge the clinging hydroton or if that does not work, cut the roots just above the highest hydroton ball under the pot. This looks to be minimal root pruning to me - but I appreciate practical experiences, of course, 'cause I am all about theory here. :-) This is a good problem to have, anyway, as the plant is growing vigorously. > The constant evaporation causes strong salt build up on the leca decreasing their effectiveness over time. True, but it will never be as bad as plastic crate's wicking/evaporative abilities, right? :-) By the way, I am sure you get this, Doug, but making sure everybody else reading understands - salt build-up is very bad in media because of fertilizer burn, but here we are talking about something happening outside the pot, so none of that applies (apart from the reduced wicking capacity Doug mentioned).

I'm sorry for the loss of your mom. I lost mine the day after Thanksgiving (alzheimer's -- the cousin of ALS) and my dad at the end of April I know my mom would not have wanted to keep me from a trip. In fact, she waited until I left her room. My dad also passed after I went home to get a little sleep and before I could get back. One of the hospice nurses told me that happens in a majority of cases. They may not want you to witness their last breath. Your photos are beautiful and it looks like a wonderful way to reconnect with life, reflect and recharge. I hope you felt your mom's presence and her blessings while you were there. I know she was in your heart. The memorial service sounds perfect for her, you and your sister.

I had an experience that involved some gorgeous drip-glaze ceramic pots in 4 size sets I discovered at a Big Lots Stire. Sizes in the set ranged from about a quart in volume to maybe 2 gallons. I bought 10 sets (40 pots) on behalf of the San Toshi Bonsai Society in early spring. We also purchased 3 boxes (60 plants) of assorted dwarf conifers from Iseli Nursery, located in Oregon. We drilled holes in the bottom of the pots and transplanted the plants into the pots using the gritty mix so they would be well established in June for our fund-raiser sale at a local art fair. We had single and multi-plant plantings, as you would think would be the case if we had to fit 60 plants into 40 pots. The plants were well-established by the time of the art fair and were a hit with the patrons in spite of the fairly significant outlay. As I remember, we had about 4 plantings of various sizes that didn't sell. I took those home and put them on my grow benches to tend/prune them so we could sell them the following summer. Unfortunately, by August the plants I was tending were all in decline, the ceramic glaze on the pots had begun to craze, and at each of the cracks in the crazing pattern there was a growth of 'something' that looked exactly like the OP showed in the image (s)he provided. Since I had about 150 other conifers covering at least 20 species on the grow bench right next to the struggling plants, it didn't seem appropriate to assign the cause of the decline, which BTW ended in the death of the plants, to grower error - unless you consider choosing pots made with toxic materials to be my error. I have no problem accepting that responsibility, even though I had no reason to suspect that bowls meant to serve as a vessels to hold food for human consumption would be made with toxic ingredients that could be expected to leach into the bowls' contents. The bowls were made in China. While I can't witness with any certainty in the case at hand, I do strongly believe that in the case of the bowls I unfortunately discovered, one or more of the ingredients that were mixed together and formed into bowls before firing were, at a minimum, phytotoxic (poisonous to plants) and at the root of the weird formations that formed at the cracks in the bowls' finish. Remember, because of the soils I use and my watering habits, a build-up of dissolved solids in the soil is dubious in the extreme as causal of the growth formations I saw. Finally, as I remember, I had a strong sense these 'formations' were not organic in nature and were the outgrowth of the chemical formations formed that water as it evaporated left behind. Al