Hi Molly, kmstx, and StarLucid, Thank you for the kind words. Hopefully, I can answer most of the questions posed in the above two posts. Although I do get occasional flowers now and then, I find cool nights are what set the buds for my plants and some of my plants need cooler nights than the others, for bloom bursts like the pictures above. For me, fertilizer always helps...I have now switched to the green powder stuff you apply with your hose...I soak each plant for 2-3 minutes with fertilizer...remember, my plants are in the ground and now 8 feet tall. I do this every 6 days or so now and they are really responding much better than throwing the dry fertilizer on the ground around the plants. Yes, if your plant died back to the ground or you cut it back, it will need to "Y" again (I really dislike using that term...however, I cannot come up with a better one...LOL!) before it flowers. Mine do and I cut them back to 5 feet tall in the Fall. For over-Wintering, in my opinion, I truely think it is best to bring in your pot (or if your plant is in the ground, dig up the rootball and pot) and place near a sunny window and continue it to grow during the Winter. Even if you do not have a nice sunny window, good bright light will help. The larger plant you save without cutting back is best, say if your plant is under 4 feet tall and you can handle one that size in your livingroom, dining room, or a bedroom. If you trim yours back as I have to do to mine, then only trim back as minimal as you need to...remembering that in may grow 1-2 feet in the Spring prior to weather allowing you to take it outside. If you saw what I did to my plants with a big pruners, you'd weep! (Also, if you cut it back so there are little or no leaves, realize that it will not need frequent watering until it leafs out again.) Will it end up dropping its leaves? Yes, in time. Will it make a mess, probably. And it may even end up looking bad and go semi-dormant during the dead of Winter. And in February or so, you may get "blessed" with a ravaging infestation of spidermites and whitefly! Water sparingly over the Winter, but do not let it go bone dry. You need to keep the roots alive. When I water in the Winter, I soak my plants thoroughly but do NOT let them sit in standing water in a tray. Then I let them go until the soil is dry on top or they look like they may wilt. It can be a couple a weeks between watering. In the early Spring it will start its growth again and you will have a plant that will have a few flowers when you put it outside, if not a few inside. As they grow, your watering may need to increase some. The larger the pot your brug is in the better, brugs need a good large root system to perform well in our hot Summers. If you have good soil, then in the ground will be even better for the Summers as mine are. By the way, I do not even attempt to dig up the entire rootball...I am not totally nuts! You can read what I wrote about that early in this thread. I have not done the "bucketing" but TNGreenThumb outlines it above in this thread. Hopefully, I have covered everything...if not, ask away. Wildcat

Well, there are stupid people everywhere, and people who manage to be stupid about everything! Mind you the PNW is guilty for creating some of its own myths. My parents had one close friend who was into gardening. I remember in the late 80s they took a big trip to the west coast after their son moved to San Francisco. I was just getting into gardening there and he said to me "David, you wouldn't believe the roses at Butchart Gardens. And do you know what, they told us they don't even have frosts in the winter." I was skeptical of that at the time, and consulted my trusty World Book encylopedia LOL. Anyhow I can imagine the PNW once seeming remote - that's the reason the likes of David Lynch set Twin Peaks there - but I don't think it seems that way as much anymore in these internet connected times. it is after all the secondary silicon valley. (OTOH my Mom jokes that my brother who lives in Seattle was trying to move as far away as possible LOL) I will say one thing that struck me driving south from Seattle to LA was that after the Willamette Valley, that highway _really_ clears out. In the middle of the day, headed south through southern Oregon, it was mostly logging trucks, some RV/campers, but really desolate. Very very little "just people in cars" traffic. In comparison the whole of the I95 corridor from Boston to Florida is busy all years, all days. Even in the less dense sections there are people on the move for whatever reason. In southern Virginia on 95 it's nothing at all to see New Jersey and NY license plates. I've been at a gas station near here and run into some kids from the Boston area driving to South Carolina to go to the beach. OTOH, it seems like for a Seattle area person to even drive to the Bay Area is rather rarer...and LA would be like driving to another country LOL. I don't think there's anything like the mass exodus to/from Florida which happens on the east coast. Just in my definitely middle-class neighborhood...in this county (most northeasterly in Maryland) but not even on the water...I know of a couple older families that winter in Florida.

Hi i am selling a considerable amount of plumeria cutting on ebay. Species include lemon drop , charlotte elber , madame poni , cerise , penang peach , nebel rainbow , tri-colour , japanese lantern , hotplastic pink , peppermint , india , singapore dwarf pink/white , hybrid mandras and much more! Please access ebay and take a look at items under eastern_way. You can email me at eastern_way@hotmail.com for price quotation. All my price are reasonable and im offering discount on multiple items!

Try Fernwood Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve in Buchanon, Michigan (this is extreme southern Michigan, close to South Bend, Indiana). Their web address is www.fernwoodbotanical.org, or call them at 1-269-683-8653. Fernwood is on a river. One of the plants I like best there is a beautiful tri-color beech tree. There's also a gift shop with not only the usual stuff but plants as well--lots of kinds of ferns, for example--and they have a really big plant sale (twice a year, I think)where you can buy great stuff you don't find in most catalogs, let alone nurseries. They offer a nice little lunch buffet in a dining room with woodland garden print wallpaper. But of course, the best part is walking through the gardens. Do you like woods, prairie, river bank, or English-style gardens? Take your pick; they're all here. Here is a link that might be useful: Fernwood Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve