Well, thanks for your confidence :-) I have re-potted a few figs, and dozens of wine grapevines, but you can't kill those ever! They are WEEDS! House plants are a little more delicate I'm thinking, but when the pruning we did caused all kinds of fresh leaf bunches to appear, I'm thinking "maybe they are a little tougher than I thought!" I'm a certifiable nut case! My house is full of silk trees and plants because I fear death (killed dozens of house plants over time)!! Actually, I have a huge silk Dracaena Marginata in my entry! I knew it was the same tree, but did not know the name. I just liked the decorator look of the tree! These living trees will be happy outside in the partial sun and shade of the patio, or maybe even under the spotty shade of a queen palm tree! I will soak when they appear dry, and let them dry out again! And Repeat! Thanks so much! Suzi

Wow...a lot of great ideas on here. I have a very stubborn Maine Coon and he thinks it's the best gift ever to not only have a plant to chew on, but for me to put pebbles (I also tried fist sized rocks) or sticks in the dirt because he LOVES to use that extra thumb to plop those rocks & sticks onto our hardwood floor at 2am. Toby also loves water so the squirting doesn't work and loves to play with foil and celophane (I tried covering the dirt). And Toby loves spicy food so the cayenne pepper didn't work...he just licked the dirt. But I've also come to the same conclusion as most of you. Compromise. We've now got cat grass (a nice fescue) in a shallow sturdy 18" pot drainage tray for our cats to play in and the rest of my houseplants are either hung from the ceiling out of harm's way or out on our balcony. Call it a truce with the cats. They can enjoy their chlorophyl and instinct to chew/dig and we can enjoy some houseplants.

Debbie, it's a good thing you lost 2 feet of snow because i heard a rumour that you might get another one tonight! LOL Typical March, eh? We haven't lost a lot of snow. It was really mild but we didn't get much rain. Icy out there now. And chilly. We've been spoiled this winter - it isn't even that bad out there but it seems really cold! I had my amaryllis in a dark area under some shelves. Maybe not dark enough. I'll try the paper bag thing next year. I did have the geraniums potted up for about three weeks and no sign of life. I just uprooted them all to use the soil for the three wave petunias that overwintered. I transplanted them into hanging baskets yesterday, and also did several more winter sowing containers. Anyway, i think next year, i'll just keep as many geraniums as i can inside. I've done that before. This one woman in the Seniors Apartments has a lovely one blooming in the stairwell. I'm so jealous! My impatiens should be ready to transplant in a couple of weeks. The petunias are still pretty small, and my pansies have really sporadic germination. There are a few things that were planted two weeks ago that still haven't germinated. Thankfully, quite a few of the Easy Wave Blue petunias germinated. The seeds seemed like they were crushed. This week, i'm going to do some more, and the little grandguy is going to come over to plant daisies for his mom. I'm also going to let him plant some marigolds and bachelor buttons because they'll grow a lot faster than daisies. I bought a small square tray with peat pellets in it for him today. Walmart doesn't have any of its bulbs out yet. People out west are snapping them up like crazy from places like Costco and Home Depot. We don't have those around here. We never got to Canadian Tire today, but maybe we'll try to get there later this week. I'd like to get some more begonias and get them started. I overwintered the ones i had right in their pots, just put the whole thing in the cool corner of the garage where we keep vegetables. I just brought them in, so hopefully THEY won't let me down! :) Well, that's about it for now. I'm off to surf a bit and then off to bed. Nighty night! Marcia

Debbie, sorry i haven't posted, but i was thinking about you and Gary and hoping that he gets better soon. It's sad about Bijoux too - you get attached to these animals. Hope you post soon and let us know what's happening. Snow is falling here as of this morning. There's not much accumulating as it's still just above 0, but it's supposed to be like this all week, so it looks like this is it for us. Still, the mild temperatures and sunny skies have really gone towards shortening the coming winter - fingers crossed that it's like this at the other end and we don't get snow in May again! Last weekend was so nice! I was outside the whole weekend, and i think the weekend before too - can't remember for sure. Anyway, i did EVERYTHING! The plants i haven't been able to get back into gardens were planted in the vegetable bed, all the containers dumped (some i brought inside quite awhile ago), leaves applied as mulch to some of the gardens and some of the more tender plants (Miss Morden Sunrise now wears a cardboard box filled with leaves in the hopes that she won't die right back to the ground again this year), and all my containers are picked up, organized and stored! Whew! I even hung my Christmas lights out! Audric, glad to hear that your Craft Fair did so well. I haven't heard about ours, how much they made, probably because the parents organize it and not the teachers. If it was the teachers, they would have been making a big deal of it in the staff room! LOL Are you a teacher, Audric? What grade? I'm a library technician at our school here. Well, i must run as we're going to town this morning. We're going to have a sulking dog because dh asked his mother to come with us so now the dog has to stay home. He loves to come with us and knows all the fields where there might be cows or horses and gets all excited when he sees them! Last week when we went past the buffalo farm, he leaped into the back of the van and stuck his nose out one of the vent windows! It was quite funny! Anyway, Debbie, before i go, here's a picture of the little grandguy/dinosaur: Hoping again that Gary is better and home again. Take care, all! Marcia