I was being bored and chanced on this group. If any of you go to sales, auction and other, look for old garden books. Many of them have much lost information. Currently I am waiting for April to see if I can do a spring tree peony graft the way mentioned in a 1840 Horticulture, Botany, magazine talks about. Have had several others especially from NY and PA that talks about using manure pits to heat hot houses. I don't have enough manure or area to do that but a lot of information is waiting in the old books. You just have to decifier it. Same way to had to take your gram's receipts where it said a hand full of this and that. Those of you that still have old ones arround keep talking to them about what was done when they were little. Between what sounds like babble is a world of information if you just listen to it. Hope you all weather the ice and stay warm until spring.

Hello Mae, you're very welcome. It was no problem at all, and I really enjoyed your visit. The plant was not flowing latex on either cut. It was very well rooted, but the roots were extremely dry as you know. I watered the rooted portion, then put the cutting in a solution of water, rooting hormone, and a couple drops of spray and grow. I'll leave the cutting in the solution until it plumps up and/or throws roots. When and if it begins to throw roots, I'll pot it up right away. Then again, I just might decide to graft it onto a seedling. On a cutting so severely dehydrated, my practice is to soak it asap after cutting. Hope this answers your questions. If not let me know. I can't remember if I told you that your new Wildfire had been up-potted recently. Should be fine in that pot for a couple years anyway. Dewaine

I remember you moving those babies. And you are so right about having too many hosta. Like potato chips, never too many! Hosta are notoriously reticent to stick their little heads up. Just when you give up, walk away. Pretend you don't care. Don't look. Just sigh loudly. When they think you're not paying attention, and it's too late in the spring, they'll pop out. Same as crape myrtles here. I've learned that just when I'm ready to hack one down, it'll put out leaves. Then, the ones I did hack down stick something up out of the ground. (Usually a crape myrtle middle finger.) Luckily, CMs bloom on new wood, whereas lilacs on old wood. That's something I had to learn about blooming trees and shrubs!

Firstly i would just like to thank all of you for taking the time to respond to my post and there are some very interesting points here. To answer a few of your points: I will definitely look into vermicomposting some more as quite a few of you mentioned it. But i was trying to avoid that kind of idea as a lot of people in my market (people new to composting) find food scraps 'gross', so i cant see them dealing with worms. but ill do some more research on the topic. In terms of shredding material the device will have a shredder to speed up the process, but i am working out whether it should be located in the device (so things are just shredded as you put them in) or on the outside (so you shred/blend materials before tipping them into the bin) I understand your concerns on sanitation issues regarding the chopping board, but part of our project is to include multiple functions so it is just a possible option. To combat this though the outside of the machine and chopping board are covered in an Superomniphobic / Antimicrobial Molecular Coating, which prevents anything from sticking to them and kills an bacteria that comes into with the surfaces, keeping the chopping board and exterior of the machine sanitary. There will be a spout located at the bottom of the machine to collect excess liquid at the base of the compost, as it can be used a nutritious plant feed To get air to the pile whilst keeping it sealed and preventing smells, there will be aerating blocks inside which provide oxygen to the pile and a series of carbon filters located around the machine. These allow air to the pile but kill bad odors. The machine also has carbon, nitrogen, temperature and moisture sensors which constantly measure the pile to ensure it is at optimal composting conditions. I understand the point you make that using electrical power is anti-green, and to be perfectly honest it is. But the angle i am using is that the power needed out ways the detrimental impacts of food waste... which it does. But the machine can still operate without power, obviously just with less functions and a longer period to produce compost. I do still need to do some more testing though around size, as different households produce different amounts of waste. An option is to have the machine available in a few different sizes, large, medium, small? A small indoor compostor that deals with food waste has a potentially huge market as well for flats and apartments, a market which is only getting bigger as well I know all this seems a little far fetched but as toxcrusadr mentioned this is an educational project so we can push the boundaries a bit. Plus i am designing a product for the market in 2-3 years time, when these technologies will be drastically cheaper. Thank you again though for taking time to respond to this post and i hope to hear more from you. Please feel free to just blast queries, questions, ideas etc.