Thanks for all your good wishes. Did come home Friday night, and Vera, no problem in taking it slow. The spine is talking to me constantly making sure I move slowly and do nothing stupid, Surgery was a full success and the only pain now is post op. The gardens are doing well, and mother nature is cooperating quite well with the watering for me. So far no nightmares about hubby, the engineer, doing the watering for me. That was a sight for sore eyes 2 years ago when he had to take care of the gardens for me. Should be able to get out in the gardens for some pics in about 2 weeks, by then so much more will be blooming too. Fran

Beopposed9, Are you planing on growing this plant in a pot permanently? If not I would put it in the ground. It is not so much the roots you see exposed above ground but how tangled they are at the bottom of that pot. I agree with cactus as far as pot size plant size. If you are going to grow it in a pot for a long time more than a year, then give it a layer of mulch to cover those roots. If you are going to plant it in the ground then untangle the roots very gently and plant and mulch. Hope this didn't confuse you more. James in Florida

Your right, this is a DWC and is my 1st try with Bell Peppers. They look twice as healthy as the ones I have in my garden. I'm probably in a bit cooler area being 75 miles from the WI border. I lost 2 of them today. I was using a plexiglass sheet that I placed between 2 chairs to keep the rain off of them. The sheet was maybe 4 feet away on a table today and a giant wind picked it up. It landed on the unit, what luck. I lost my biggest plant, my smallest plant and damaged a 3rd. So now they are less crowded. Still a bummer. I started them on Dynagrow 7-9-5 for the first month. After that I switched to Maxigrow 10-5-14 which is what I have them in now. I was thinking to use Maxibloom 5-15-14 after the blossoms appear. All at 800PPM. I'm starting to see buds now so it won't be too long before I switch. See below. Thanks for the info, it's good to get it from someone who's been there and done that.

Beautiful Steve! I have one 50 year old spring blooming camelia that I inherited when I bought my house, but seeing your fall blooming ones may cause me to include 1 or 2 fall blooming in my garden.I know Fairweather gardens has a good selection. Where did you purchase some of yours? I saw the fencing around a few of your smaller plants-protection from rabbits? Leslie