looking at your "original" and "later on" banana pictures, which by the way IS what this posting is really asking for, they look the same as some plants I got in a recent tissue cultured liner. a few plants in the corner of the liner got too dry in the sun, then were overwatered by me-oops!, and they looked exactly like that and the next leaves that came out had that same "mechanical damaged" look to them. Just keep the moisture a little towards the dry side, but not bone dry, baby it along and the next leaves should look just fine. Don't overfertilize, because if you was to knock that plant out of the pot, you should see root damage because of the "too dry-too wet" bounce. Put it in partial shade outside, watch the moisture, and it'll recover.

Ken - We aren't slandering them... We're mearly letting other users know our experience so they can make an informed decision and if the stock is worth the price. I've ordered a good 150 plants in the last 2 years. I've ordered from new places and I've ordered from same places over and over again. Out of the 150 plants 10 where from them. They were so distorted looking and ugly that I had to get my money back. No responce through e-mail and when you call they want to give you credit on a future order. I planted 6 of the 10 plants if I can recall... Of the 6 planted only 1 didn't make it... 2 still look great... that leaves me with 3 others in the ground and 4 in 1 gallon containers. A total of 7... you still follow? I ripped the 3 out of the ground... then I took the 4 in 1 gallon containers and tossed them in the burning pile. Most didn't make it, not because of stress or planting, but because I couldn't stand looking at them each time I walked around lol. I understand that their will be some degree of failture when planting, but some plants aren't worth planting to begin with. If someone is going to ask about this company... I will tell them my experience... You don't send someone plants that look like this and offer them store credit on future orders... I know they trapped Whaas in the endless cylce until he finally had enough. I think he ordered from them 3-4 times and each time he called and they gave hime store credit for future use. Frankly, I haven't had a problem with ANY other company... all stock has been healthy. I've placed probably 15 orders through 4-5 different companies in the last two years. Some stock was expensive, some not so much, some cheap. They fall in the mid price range. I did have one bad plant of the 50 I bought over the past two years from SongSparrow. one plant I just had a concern with. I didn't want a replacement... I just called to let them know just incase it turned south after planting. They told me not to worry about it and to go ahead and plant it. In the meantime they will send a replacement just incase that it didnt. Now mary can make her own judgement on this company once she receives the plants. Who knows she may receive great looking plants. If she does I hope she will post a positive review... if she doesn't I hope that she will post a negative review. Whaas got from them looked pretty nice... it all just depeds on their stock at the moment. I'm more upset with customer service and how they handle replacements then the plants themselves.

Betty, Did you take the broken rose branch and root it? Might as well make lemonade when life gives you lemons. The wind here is ridiculous today. It is a wonder the row covers haven't blown away but I do have them pinned down pretty firmly. I have tried to keep the peppers warm by having them in the greenhouse during the day, and bringing them inside the house if I think the greenhouse will drop below 40 degrees or so. My poor pepper plants barely know what real sunlight is because they haven't seen it in so long. I want to plant all the rest of my hot-season stuff, but have been waiting for some consistency in the forecast too. Since I couldn't direct-sow anything today (I would have had to remove the row covers), I started a lot of warm-season herbs and flowers in flats, and a few veggies like cukes, melons, watermelons, Armenian cukes, etc. I hope to pop them out of the six-packs and into the ground the minute the first tiny bit of green pops up out of the soil-less mix. I intend to put bean seeds in the ground tomorrow. They raised tomorrow night's forecast low from 44 to 48, so I feel like it will be warm enough. Our 3-day average soil temp dropped from the low 70s to the mid or upper 60s with with this last cold front, but the soil in the raised beds is still pretty warm. Likely the row covers have helped them stay warmer by holding in the heat. Carol, I am concerned about the weather too. I am hoping that the cold spells haven't lasted long enough to cause bolting. If they do, they do....there's nothing we can do about it. The reason I have covered my onion bed's hoops with the 10-degree row cover for every cold spell is not because I thought the onions might freeze but because I hoped it would keep them warm enough that they'd be less likely to bolt. I guess we'll know in the next couple of weeks if they are going to bolt, and I am hoping they won't because they are so lovely right now and will make a great crop if they don't bolt and if hail doesn't get them. Our Sugar Snaps are producing faster than we can pick them and eat them. I guess it makes up for the early heat wrecking the crop the last two years. Either we need to start eating them at every meal, or I need to freeze some. I planted mine in paper cups in February and then got them into the ground as early as I could, but I planted a certain percentage of them every week for 3 or 4 weeks, trying to spread out the risk of a late freezing getting them. I also staggered the potato plantings quite a lot. The first two beds that I planted are the tallest, and the third bed is not far behind. They are getting too tall to cover so we're in trouble if we get another cold front, which I hope doesn't happen of course. I was looking at the first two beds a few minutes before sunset, and the plants look like they've grown 6-8 inches since Tim covered up those beds on Wed.evening. You can see the plants pushing and straining at the row cover. I think it keeps them so warm that they grow faster while it is on them. I haven't planted a single bean yet, but hope to rectify that tomorrow. We have a lot of rain chances in our forecast for next week, and since lately our rain has come only in little bits....a few hundredths of an inch here, a tenth of an inch there, we really need that rain. Maybe if I get the beans in the ground and then it rains, they'll sprout quickly to make up for going into the ground so late. You still might get more parsley volunteers. Just this past week, volunteers started popping up like mad. I imagine when we rototilled all the soil repeatedly while rebuilding the beds this spring, we exposed a lot of buried seeds to sunlight. While weeding on Wed. right before putting on the row covers, I saw volunteer seedlings of all kinds---okra, watermelon, ornamental purple-leaved peppers, flowers of several kinds, tomatoes, etc. I even saw basil and corn volunteers. The basil can stay but I'll yank out the corn since it is in the middle of a row of garlic. I know you don't like cilantro and won't try to change your mind about it, but I grow it near potatoes and I do believe it helps keep the potato bugs away. I planted about 30 lbs. of seed potatoes so we have row after row of potato plants and I haven't seen a single CPB yet. Grasshoppers, however, have arrived in full force. Dawn

Miss Amy, your box did arrive yesterday and I apologize for not posting sooner. My grandbaby just went home and I wasn't online. Anyways, Amy sent me a wonderful box. It has a bottle holder in shades of blue and off white, an awesome assortment of mixes to put in my water, a hummingbird feeder, a rose scented soap, and seeds :prairie coneflower, blazing stars, portulaca, blanket flower, purple spiderwort! Thanks so much Amy..I loved it!