I can relate as far as my annuals, perennials, and tropicals. It has just been a year of "survival" until next year. What's been heppening in the garden? Nothing - that sums it up. A very limited number of butterflies and moths. The few I had were the fruit, dung, sap eating butterflies, because I fed them. The tropicals bloomed well because they can tolerate the heat and humidity. But, there are no big butterflies to nectar on them. The heat prevented a lot of bloom on my plants. Just got too hot, too fast, for them to bloom well. This last break from the heat - a short one - has at least produced more blooms on my sole tomato plant, and hopefully they will get pollinated to produce tomatos in fall. The best plants in the garden for flowering? Pyramid Bush (in the Chocolate family), a very pretty little bright pink flowering tropical; Dwarf Red Porterweed (tropical), Gerbera daisy (red/orange), Datura, Flame Acanthus - this plant just keeps on going and nothing bothers the flowers or the foliage, I love it! - Maximilian Sunflower; Golden Crownbeard; David Verity Cuphea, and Tropical Milkweed. My Verbena bonariensis, which is normally a very prolific blooming plant, has had some kind of foliage disease this year that turns the plant foliage white, and it hasn't produced near the blooms in normally does. Those it does produce don't last very long at all. The Southern Pink Moth has all but decimated my Salvias this year, and some kind of little leaf-cutting, petiole cutting caterpillars have demolished the Morning Glories. I like caterpillars, but not those that are destructive and appear in such large numbers it is literally impossible for an organic gardener to fight. It is so strange - I have a Packman broccoli that has never produced a head, but is still growing and hasn't bolted yet. ????? Even the Zinnias are not producing as well as they should, few blooms, and wonky stems. I have kept the garden watered as well as possible, and am hoping the fall will turn things around, altho I keep hearing extended weather predictions of a very warm fall. We'll see. I feel very bad for all of you who put so much work into your vegetable gardens only to have them burn up in this heat and drought. My heart just melts for you guys! Susan

I did not write the date I started the seeds. My bad - however, I think it was just last month. I have photographs of cotyledons so I can pinpoint within a few days. I use freeze-dried seaweed as a fertilizer which I got on eBay, reconstituted in water and further diluted at time of use. I used worm castings as a top dressing one time. I think purpureas are r-strategists when it comes to reproduction so they do not need much for fertilizer but do tell me what you all use ok? Joseph

I will congratulate you on your success, Richard. Your window looks quite large - almost floor to ceiling? And the exposure (south east) is the perfect one. Temps are very good and your humidity level is actually quite high for many indoor heated homes in winter. I've seen people struggle to keep the humidity at 30% and often it can get as low as 20! So at 40%, your rose is in a good place. No one guaranteed that you would contract spider mites indoors, but in a very dry environment, it is quite likely. You've escaped that pest it seems - lucky you! :-) So, yes, it can be done and it is good to hear of your happy Dick Clark. But I still would caution readers that it is NOT always 'just that easy.' I have seen some pretty sad roses posted by people who didn't know any better and were trying to get them through the winter inside their house. Hence the source of those warnings. OTOH, I've seen a few successes posted like yours as well, my own included...but I DID have to "baby" my potted roses (Teas, grown in zone 4) by moving them to the shower every single week through the winter to keep spider mites at bay. And although mine were in front of a pair of double hung windows that faced south, the Low-E glass cut some of the sunlight and it wasn't quite enough for them so I had to supplement with a fluorescent fixture hung just above them. That was my experience, for what it's worth. Glad you are finding wintering your potted rose baby much, much easier. :-) Anne

Yes, I kept them under lights in the basement until after Christmas. The problem with that is that it's easy to forget about them down there, so they were underwatered and the bugs flourished. I brought them up and put them in a sunny window where I could keep a closer eye on them and things improved, although they got pretty lanky and by last week it all looked really ugly. But looks don't matter, I just had to keep them alive. A few days ago I took cuttings again and now they are all lined up in trays, looking fine and hopefully growing roots. By the time they are strong enough to go in the sun I am hoping the weather will be nice enough that I can set them outside for at least a couple hours every day. This will save electricity, keep them from getting stretched and get me a headstart on hardening them off, which I usually do a terrible job of. In conclusion, it's a lot of work to save $3 on seeds. Probably only worth it for hard to find varieties. I thought it was fun though, and wanted to teach my kids about propagation by cuttings. Tomatoes root very quickly and easily.