Guess I need to take some images of my plants. Will do so tomorrow. I just repotted a couple of weeks ago. Their new growths are prob. about 6 inches high at this time. Also will measure foot candles at midday, if I don't forget! I find it hard to believe that you could kill a cymbidium with osmocote! What was the formula? I believe that if you covered the entire surface of a pot of cymbidium with osmocote that it would not harm the plant. Just not possible because of its slow release characteristics and because if your mix was good then there would be a substantial loss of the fertilizer due to leaching out during watering. Your cym died from some other reason not from osmocote. But in using it the product comes with a small plastic lid that you can pour the osmocote into. fill that up and sprinkle it around the surface of the pot. It should not harm your phrags. Please keep in mind that despite the phrags rather harsh natural growing sites that the water that flows past them has fallen off of trees that are filled with bird and other animal droppings and are probably quite rich in organics to help the plants grow. Are there any plants that can suck nutrients out of the air???? My greenhouse temps are being kept at a low in the 60s though ocassional drops into the high 50s occur. Don't mean to confuse on the light. Cattleya light is great for them but measure the foot candles during the day and record just how long the levels are high and to what low they occur and when.

Here is a list of the Selaginella species of Georgia: There are two sections: 1. Tetragonostachys 2. Stachygynandrum the first are moss like and the second are like the common Selaginella kraussiana that is sold in many garden centers under a variety of names. 1. tetragonostachys: acanthonota, arenicola, rupestris, tortipila 2. stachygynandrum: apoda, ludoviciana There are several members of stachgynandrum that are of foreign origin that have been naturalized in the state. I have excluded them from the above list. For more info check out my site (link below) On growing Lycopodium: there is some belief that these club mosses have a commensual relationship with certain soil fungi in order to survive. I have no clue but would tend to think that not enough is really known to make such a statement. More information is really needed on the soil characteristics that these plants grow in, including temperatures and the seasonal variations of the characterisitics. I tend to think that for the creeping species that die back is normal on the older stems as the colony advances outward. I would think the easiest member to grow would be the semi aquatic Lycopodiella species. Here is a link that might be useful: The Genus Selaginella

My understanding was that D. luxuriant was a hybrid of D. eximia (East coast) and D. formosa (west coast). In my experience it seems to be sterile. I've always thought people are better off picking the species native to their coast as both are spectacular without any modification at all. Also regarding previous messages above about Lycopodiums, I've noticed that in many ways these species are given a blanket "hands off" from most native plant enthusiasts and relatively hard to find in the nursery trade. I've even heard that some states have put blanket prohibitions against selling them. Just as views on growing native orchids are finally changing, I do wonder if there could be a similar revolution here. There are so many lovely Lycopodium and it shouldn't be hard for someone to do the garden science to figure out how to responsibly propagate and grow them. Unfortunately, I suspect that anyone who tries will catch the same amount of criticism that the first people who debunked the whole "all orchids need a special mychorihza" myth.

Thanks for the feedback. Ladyslppr: I do think the spiderwort is a garden escape, so not a true volunteer. I'll be working on getting rid of it (have to dig down). Davidl: I love the heart-leaved asters too, although they do reseed prolifically in my yard and I've cleared them out of certain areas where they were engulfing smaller natives. Peter: I actually had a pokeweed along the fence last year covering up a missing slat, but it hasn't come back. I do get a little nervous about its reseeding habit, but the birds love the berries and it's nice to have such a tall herbaceous plant in a garden with lots of small plants. Beggar ticks aren't a big problem so far, but I'll probably pull them. Indian tobacco has little blue & white flowers in the late summer when not much else is happening, so I may keep it (although it reseeds quite a bit). I'm surprised no one said anything about the brambles -- I had been pulling this religiously. Should I let it grow? They seem to pop up all over the place. I didn't mention my least favorite native volunteer -- poison ivy -- it serves an ecological purpose in the woods away from habitation, but just doesn't fit with my small native garden. My next door neighbor has it all over and every year it starts to come through, under and over the fence and I break my 'no chemicals' policy and get out the Brush-B-Gon. Another native volunteer I didn't mention is daisy fleabane, Erigeron sp. I tend to pull these also, but I'm not sure why. -- wd (Now if I can only encourage some volunteer native birds to nest in my birdhouse so I stop unintentionally breeding English house sparrows.... but that's a post for another forum.)