Hi Jen, I have several, well, ok, a lot, of billbergias that bloom in the winter. In fact I think most billbergias bloom in the winter. Here are a few: This is 'Fantasia' at Nell's house last year and the bud of one that's about to bloom in my greenhouse: Billbergia minima in bud and a close up of the bloom: This is B. 'Pixie': This is B. wendii: This is a pretty NOID that Nell gave me a couple of years ago: And this is a Billbergia nutans F1 hybrid, I'm told: I heard so much about the hardiness of B.n. last year that when I divided the huge old plant in the picture I planted the bare parts of the left-over rhizomes in the front yard. Here's a photo from yesterday: I have more that should be flowering soon but I don't think I have pictures of them. Gotta get more conscientious about that!

We installed Marmoleum Click in two bedrooms. I loved the idea of non-toxic allergy floors. One in Barbados, one in Silver Shadow. Just gorgeous. So easy to vacuum up. I was so pleased; the floors were easy to clean and wax with the suggested products. I took good care with them. I think it was installed about fourteen years ago. Three years ago, I noticed the floors started to have dents. Almost all the furniture had those protective sliders to protect the floor and make it easy to slide the furniture for cleaning. Even sliding a bed out to clean the floor underneath left a dent. I've heard you can use some mineral oil to smooth out the dents. I have one area where an antique desk leg literally went through the floor. It is suggested you can make a mix of the flooring and fill in the hole. I have not tried either method to repair the floors,

This posting came up when I was looking through everyone's beautiful posts of so many new ones and I sit and drool and have no more room to buy more, Even my pots are full now and I planted a hot sunny spot a couple years ago when we changed the stairs to our front deck. It doesn't look like my Praying Hands has grown much since last season but there are well over the 100 pips this spring when I was able to count them. Maybe it has grown after all is said and done

We've been running about 70% of our average monthly rainfall (average since we started keeping rain records for the garden in 2004). One benefit of keeping the rain records is putting it all in perspective - e.g. rainfall is very variable from year to year here - for instance we had 82mm. in June, compared to 119mm last year and 89mm for the 2004-2020 average. But the lowest rain amount we had in June was 43mm in 2016! We water new plantings and things in pots, but other than that, things are expected to survive on their own with natural rainfall! We did use soaker hoses in the first few years when we started the garden but, by 2004 when we started keeping the rain records, we had largely stopped using them and they have long since been removed or abandoned. It's tough coping with dry periods and we do sometimes water (by 'flooding' a dry area with the hose running gently in the bed) if somewhere is looking very stressed. Plants are generally tougher than we feared!