Thank you for the kind words Ladies … and I haven’t even posted the new ones from this year yet !!! Deb - I have in fact dived into the proverbial pond of seed growing. After the splash I made at the BADITC auction I had better, right ? But, I’m saving that unveiling for a separate post. Stay tuned. :) Dearest Mocc - Was it you who ended up with that variegated bletilla ??? I almost went for that last year, but held off since I wasn’t sure if I would have the space (which I didn’t). Also, bletilla do NOT overwinter in pots at all, or at least they didn’t for me. I had some of the standard striata in a pot from 2012 and this spring in 2013 I finally decided to dump it when there was no emergence by June. Sure enough the pseudobulbs had rotted to mush. I still have two patches in the back yard gardens that are faring so-so. I have plans to move them this spring to the amended front beds, currently they’re competing with some major maple roots. They haven’t bloomed in the last two years so I know I need to move them or they will eventually be strangled out ... and we can't have that, now can we ?!?! Bkay - I’m glad you enjoyed ! Always a pleasure to share. I'm surprised being in Texas you haven't tried some yourself .......... enable. :p Trudy - Indeed, I am definitely NOT looking forward to the culling, but it seems a necessary evil when growing seeds for streaked breeders. But, I finally got my login sorted out over on the HSG forums (thank you again Bob), so you shall see me posting over there soon with progress. And that leaves me with Miss Jo - Goodness Gurl, you type about as much as ‘Long-Winded Ludi’. I LOVE IT !!! What a wonderful story about your experience in Beamsville (listen to me, like I know where that is). I would love for my partner to build me a greenhouse, but he knows that would in essence be Pandora’s Box. For now, he’s content to leave me with my room in the attic. Honestly though, I don’t have enough time working a full time job to take care of what I have NOW, let alone taking on more. What did Ken say earlier this year … ah … hope springs eternal. :) You leave me with some opened ended questions, so I will take the easy one first. I counted pictures, and I believe #17 was this one: Its fancy name is psychopsis mendenhall and the common name is butterfly orchid. Although if you google ‘butterfly orchid’ you get all kinds of garbage, so google the latin name. :) Interesting that you would choose this one, as it is the only orchid of mine that is in bloom pretty much all year. It puts out a flower stalk way high above its leaves, and then will only form one bud at a time. Once that first bud opens and the flower eventually fades and falls off, it will then put a new bud out at the same meristem. It takes anywhere from 2-3 weeks for one bud to mature, but then the flower is open for about as long. So I am basically 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off with a flower. It is one of the best orchids I’ve ever grown. I confess I don’t keep mine watered as much as I should and my temps/humidity are all over the place. If I was more of a perfectionist I could probably get it to throw two of three more flower stalks. Then they would open at different intervals, subsequently allowing a flower to be viewed at all times. Usually at orchid shows they sell them with at least two or three flowers stalks. Mine presently has two, but the original has stopped blooming. Here is a picture I took today to illustrate this. You can obviously see the flower on the left :) and the multiple re-blooming that occurred on the older stalk to the right. I only had both of them open once, and then after that the first stalk stopped blooming. That was back sometime in June though. I can’t quite bring myself to cut it off … keep hoping it will maybe start blooming again … there is that spring of eternal hope again. :p Oh, also, to give you a time table, the original stalk kept re-blooming for almost two full years before the second stalk came up and ‘took over’. Sort of like a changing of the guard, now that I think about it. :) As for your second question - what would be a preferable orchid for you to try, given the limited environment you described ? That is a tough call, honestly, and I have given a lot of thought to it. I think the most ‘forgiving’ would be a phaleonopsis. However, I do not have any experience with growing orchids on windowsills and don’t know that I would if I had a south facing window after the success I’ve had growing under lights. But I understand that most people are far more practical than me, so I stand with my suggestion of phaleonopsis. :) Orchids need enough light both to sustain life and re-bloom. But light is only half the battle. To get a Phal to rebloom, you need to have a noticeable drop in temps from a consistent couple of months of warm summer weather. Ya know what ?!?!? I JUST wrote a four page breakdown for Steve to help him with his little Phal about a month ago (still waiting on those pictures Steve). Email me through the GardenWeb, include your return email in the body of the message, and I will be happy to send it to you. And to anyone else who may be interested. It is basically a four page primer from MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE … I break a lot of rules, so I have to make that disclaimer since any ‘real’ orchid enthusiast would run away screaming if they saw my setup and my methodologies. But hey, a picture is worth a thousand words, so I guess I have been doing something right these last 4 years. ::grins:: But seriously, shoot me an email and I will send you a copy of the word document. Orchids are not impossible, but they are fussy and highly specialized. But that does not mean you can’t have your own success. Take a dive, the water is fine. :) ::enablenablenablenable:: Ludi

My plumaria expert says that blossom booster or anything with such a high middle number is useless. In fact some of the threads by Al will agree. I use "Dynamite" 13 13 13...Even numbers right across the board. In fact most plants don't like such a high middle number, because your throwing the abilty off for the whole plant to be healthy, even the colors of the leaves by forcing flowers on your plants when you don't have to. How come plumies flower from the ground outdoors withou someone throwing so much middle number on them? In the ground, they are getting an even amount of nutriets to sustain over look, vigour, and health. I will send you an excert of why the middle number is useless. The "dynamite" has worked wonders for me. It is slow release along with micro nutrients and a well balanced fert. Just some excerts... "Whatever nutrients are available in excess, will be absorbed by the plant to a certain degree, and in some cases, this may lead to toxicity or even symptoms of shortages of other nutrients as toxicity levels block a plant's ability to take up other nutrients. Too much nitrogen will lead to excessive foliage production and less flowering. Too much potassium or phosphorus will not lead to ill effect, but will show up as a deficiency of other nutrients as it blocks uptake". "What about the "Bloom Booster" fertilizers you might ask? To induce more prolific flowering, a reduced N supply will have more and better effect than the high P bloom formulas. When N is reduced, it slows vegetative growth without reducing photosynthesis. Since vegetative growth is limited by a lack of N, and the photosynthetic machinery continues to turn out food, it leaves an expendable surplus for the plant to spend on flowers and fruit". "The fact that different species of plants grow in different types of soil where they are naturally found, does not mean that one needs more of a certain nutrient than the other. It just means that the plants have developed strategies to adapt to certain conditions, like excesses and deficiencies of particular nutrients.." "Most greenhouse operations will follow pretty closely to a 2-1-2 ratio of the primary macro-nutrients on most greenhouse crops with minor deviations based on tissue analysis and the effect of the growing medium. Most post-greenhouse fertilization will follow fairly closely to a 3-1-2 ratio, with some deviation. Again, this very closely mimics the range of the primary macros found in plant tissues". Read the thread......type in search.... "Fertilizer Program - Containerized Plants (Long Post) very imformative article". I never use blosson booster, and all my plants flower Profusely.... Hope this helps and greens up the leaves along with giving you nice flowers next time around..:-) Mike

I do it old school. Post it on a site like Picassa or Photobucket. Then insert them with HTML. (img src=whatevertheimage'swebaddressis) but using the carets (Is that the word?) over the comma and period instead of the parentheses. repeat.

I have no idea if one can print from a scanned negative on a home printer. The scanner just turns the negative into a digital image, the same as a scanned print, so a store that can print pictures from CDs should (I think) be able to print from the scanned negatives. I have never used this feature as yet, always putting it off, but my setup instructions that came with the scanner tell how to scan these things. I'm not a photo expert at all, so maybe I should give this a try and let you know what happens. I noticed that NOCANDO, the poster who first responded to you, has a similar scanner to mine. Not all scanners have this capability, but there are probably others besides these models that can do this. I just thought I'd like to be able to make prints from my slides, so that is the main reason I bought this model.