Damn! Had a reply all typed out, but it never posted... Hopefulauthor: It is indeed my first cyclamen. Been slightly traumatic, watching those beautiful blooms and leaves turn to mush... How can you tell the difference between the natural dormancy cycle and true death? I might just be freaking out, but it went downhill just this week after I doused it. And there were new blooms. GB: Thanks for the info. Looks like National Pigeon Grit is a bust. AL: HOWEVER! When I went to return my MG bags I stumbled upon something called Pearl Stone Decorative Soil Cover, which is really just a silly name for some irregularly shaped rocks. The particle size ranged from 1/8" at the very smallest to just a little bigger than 1/4". The bag doesn't tell me the kind of stone, but it probably wouldn't have additives. The Mosser Lee website says, "Mosser Lee Pearl Stone represents the finest in quality rock bedding. The small particles are perfectly designed to loosen heavy soils and provide excellent bases for any gardening or craft project. Pearl Stone�s rich grey color and small dimension are designed for creative creations." Would these work? Well, I guess the point of the granite is that you know it holds water, and this might not. I also found lava rocks though, and other decorative rocks from Whitney Farms. Does anyone have any positive experience with these? If not, I'm officially throwing in the towel on grit and turning to pumice and course perlite. City gardening is *inconvenient*! Here is a link that might be useful: Mosser Lee Pearl Stones

Well, you'll get a lot of differing opinions about whether or not to cut the flower stem (inflo). During rooting, if leaves start to generate, but then stop, I'd cut it off. Or if you've got lots of other plumeria blooms to enjoy, remove it now. Morning sun might be OK, unless you're in the mid- to upper 90s or low 100s and have very low humidity. In that case I'd probably put it in dappled shade. How long (in inches) is the broken section? The larger the cutting, generally the easier it will be to root...at least anything over 14 inches will be easier than, say, 5-6 inches. Hopefully someone with more 'California' experience will chime in! We have a totally different climate here in Virginia in the summer. We're hazy, hot, and humid, and our night temps usually stay above 65 degrees thru June, July and August. Daytime highs around 80 - 95. So we can usually leave a cutting in full to part sun. The haze cuts down the rays a bit. And we also get rain, so we have to keep cuttings protected from too much moisture. But the humidity is so high that we rarely have to water the soil. They'll root in 'humid' soil just fine!

I'm familiar with the Phoenix brick wall yard. Do you or your neighbors have any trees that cast a shadow over your yard? And which direction does the back of the house face? The reason I ask is a friend of mine in Gilbert fought with his sissoo tree trying to grow bermuda for years. He finally went with St Augustine and is very happy. Contrary to what you're thinking, it isn't that hard to keep grass green in Phoenix, even St Augustine. During the heat wave y'all had last August (115 in the shade) he was watering the St Aug once every 4 days. Here's a picture of his back under the sissoo. - taken last March 2015. That's a west wall to the right so from mid morning on his yard is shade. St Aug is a lot easier to care for than bermuda, so you might consider going with that. Tell me about your shade and I'll help you get prepped. I'm not worried about the slope, so that's good. You do not need any more soil, though, so get that out of your mind. You just need to fix the soil you have. That's easier than your plan. Generally grass seed goes down on top of the soil and should not be buried. What you do is press it down either with a heavy roller or with your feet. If you go with bermuda seed, get a mix of Sahara, Princess, and Yukon. First you need to get the soil as settled and level as possible. Get the sprinkler on it and water it deep. Apply at least 1/2 inch all at one time. Put some cat food or tuna cans out and time how long it takes to fill the cans. That's 1 inch. That will be your watering time from now on, so memorize it. My time is 8 hours for my water pressure, hose, and oscillator sprinkler. That's a nice gentle rain. But then I don't water again for at least a week. The soil needs to dry out completely before watering again...but I'm getting ahead of myself. Water the ground until it's pretty wet. Then don't walk on it or you could compact it. Let it dry for a couple days and see where the low spots have developed. If you have a low spot in the center you should pull soil up from a spot that is supposed to be lower into the center to raise it up. There should be a slight crown in the center so the water will drain away from there - but not toward the house. If you need more soil I suggest a relatively coarse, gritty sand. Gritty like aquarium sand with sharp edges, but not nearly that huge of a particle. The bermuda will grow up through the sand just fine, and sand is easy to move around to get it level. Level the soil/sand with a long board and/or a home made drag. Drag it level, water to settle, and reevaluate whether you need more sand for the new low spots. Keep watering every few days to settle the soil. This will also sprout as many weed seeds as you can. Once you have it level it should be the end of this month. Then spray the new weeds with Round Up to kill them. Keep watering to sprout more weeds. A week later spray out the new weeds. Then you're ready to seed. Scatter the seed, walk on it to press it into the surface of the soil. Water 3x per day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) for just long enough to moisten the soil - not saturate it. It should never be soggy. Do that until you get 80% germination. Then start backing off on watering frequency and going up on the time. We have plenty of time to cover that detail. Note that this is completely different from the plan you came in here with. If you would like me to go through your plan, step by step, and explain why this is different, I can do that. So here's my problem with bermuda, especially for new folks. If you really want it to look good, it needs FULL sun for at least 6 hours per day. This means that the grass that is north, east, or west of a building, brick wall, tree, or shrub will be thin and ugly. You can reseed every year and pull out all the stops, but it won't grow there. Secondly Bermuda is a nitrogen hog. If you want it to look good it needs to be fertilized with a high N fertilizer once a month. Thirdly it needs to be mowed at the mower's lowest setting 2x to 3x per week depending on how fast it's growing. If you have any holes for the mower wheels to fall into, it will scalp the grass. The good thing about bermuda is that if you stop watering it for 6 months, it will come back with the first rain. St Augustine, on the other hand, only needs fertilizer 3x per year, mowing at the highest setting every other week, and is shade tolerant. It is a little more expensive to get started because it does not come as a seed. It will die in Phoenix if you don't water it for a month in 115 degree temps. But it should go 3 weeks and recover with water. This is probably generating lots of questions. I'm happy to explain anything I've said. I'll addressing proper watering or you can search this forum for "deep and infrequent".

Thanks for the heads up about rentals! Good idea. Lynn, we experienced this lack of parts support with our Samsung induction. We've only had it 7 years and when the burners died, we could not get the parts because those models are no longer supported. The tech was on the phone for almost two hours trying to find the parts, which apparently the last were sold a few months back. That coupled with that they no longer make this particular freestanding range model meant we had to get another range. We cook pretty much every day. Frustrating because the oven and everything worked great, so we had to cook without using burners. Our neighbor asked us if he could take it and haul it for scrap, so we said sure. There are not a whole lot of places that keep induction in stock. At Lowe's they would all have to be ordered and take 4-6 weeks! Sears actually does keep a variety of induction in stock (Kenmore, Electrolux, and KA), and I was able to find an Electrolux floor model from Sears for a great price and get it delivered in a couple of days. I'ts great, but it's way more tech than the Samsung, so even we've had a bit of a learning curve on it.