Morning, Rhizo..What type of products around the house would be made of Coir?? About wetting agents. Bagged soils, like MG always contained a certain amount of Peat. The last few years, MG and other soil manufacturers started using/adding wetting agents and fertilizer. Get what I'm saying? I assume there's something in addition to Peat, added to soil that retains water. When MG first started adding wetting agent the soil was primarily used for outdoor gardening, not house plants. The last two years MG added, whatever it is, to house plant soil, too. I wrote to MG Corp a year or so ago about wetting agents and fertilizer added to House Plant soil. I suggested they sell both, so the consumer had an option to choose between the two, (be it soils with wetting agents & fertilizer or not.) Whomever responded, was an idiot! She sent 'COUPONS!!' Like getting X% off would resolve the matter; I and a million others be content..NOT! It's getting harder to find bagged soils w/o wetting agent, and certainly unfair to consumers. I for one don't want soil that retains moisture. It might be okay for garden plants, but not house plants. MG's TV commercials make it sound like they're doing us a favor..'less watering, and no need to go through all the trouble adding fertilizer.' What they really care about is making more money. Sorry Rhizo, this topic bothers me. I use MG, but not as often as before. Thankfully, there are a few other soil manufacturers that don't add wetting agents..not brand names, but who cares?? BTW, I knew what wetting agent meant, but not what it is. lol. Don't know what you mean about crystals? Wish I'd seen your Coir Stuff link before replying. I'll read it after submitting. Thanks. Cliss. What part of the C&S green house did you find your Sans? In the section where small, reasonably priced sucs are sold or larger, more expensive? Center Suc G Normally I buy small plants..even 2"ers. The only plants I've bought large are grafted Citrus, a Gardenia tree, back in 1995, and Hibiscus tree, 10+ yrs-ago.) Is gritty mix heavy or light? Don't know what you meant when you wrote you like its weight. The succulent mix I make is very porous, tropical is well-draining but a little heavier than succulent mix. It depends on the plant. Since Turface dries faster than other soils/additives, and if you happen to be the type who can't resist watering wet soil, then Turface is for you. lol. Add another 100 plants, believe me, you won't water as often, lol. Wish I had an answer about your when to water while using Turface question, but I've never potted using Turface, don't know anything about it. There are people here on GW you can ask.. People who use it regularly. Did you have an Asparagus Fern? Sprengeri? The plant that fell off the shelf? It couldn't be saved? Back in the early 90's, I bought an Anthurium, Flamingo Flower at Jamacan Gardens..Ever been there? I LOVED that plant. It was potted in clay, sat before a not-too-sunny south window. Every winter it'd flower 3-4", red blooms w/cream-color spadix. One year, my dog bumped into the shelf, knocking the Anthurim down. The clay pot broke in a million shards. I immediately repotted...same type soil, same size clay pot. It died! Just like that. I have a few Anthuriums, but they don't do nearly as well as my old Flamingo Flower. Boo hoo! lol. How often do you water Begonias in the gritty mix? Tibouchina's are so beutiful. How tall is yours? Does it flower? The blooms are gorgeous. I didn't know Tibs could be grown indoors. I don't know the species of my Adenia, but it looks nothing like Adenium. Why did you add * in the word, Adenium? lol. The plant to the left of Adenia is Impatient morsei. Got it at one of my favorite online nurseries 4/11. It grows fast. This pic was taken Nov 1, 2011. It's grown larger, however I'm afraid to prune, lol. Oily soil, yuck..lol.. Cliss, I was kidding about over-watering, so no hard-feelings, okay? Toni

Hi, Judy, Several on this Forum buy violets from a vendor in Canada called BloomLovers, so it seems that it is possible. The postage might be a little higher. Anyway, Bloomlovers ships to the U.S. It probably depends on the vendor if they want to ship to the U.S. or not. In the state where I live, a certificate is supposed to accompany the plants, either taped to the outside of the box, or included inside, stating where the plants came from and that they were inspected to be free of insects and disease. The outside of the box is supposed to state that the contents are live plants, in case a postal inspector wants to open and inspect the contents. Colorado might not require that extra step. Anyway, for that reason, I have not attempted to order from Canada myself. I came across a list of Canadian hybridizers a while ago. There are many! And they produced many varieties! So, we are missing out on a lot! I say, go for it, and let us know how it works out! Joanne

I know this thread is a bit old...but anyhow... Years ago I used a Miro DC10+ and a government surplus EVO-9850 that I got for a cheap price. That was the best Hi8 VTR ever made. Got very good results. The resolution figure on the DC10+ sounds low these days, but the truth is Hi8's true resolution wasn't that "Hi". There was a UK documentary shot on Hi8 in the 90s whose look on DVD amazed me, but then I remember PAL and SECAM always looked better. Especially SECAM, the first time I was in Paris in 1993 I couldn't believe it, it looked like high-def or what someone back then would have thought high-def would have looked like. They are higher resolution, lower framerate and better color. So, the DVD probably looked good because they used a top of the line Snell and Wilcox Alchemist Phase Correlation FFT to convert it to NTSC. Not because Hi8 was a good format. So, the point of all that techno-babble that you didn't need is that the capture device _these_ days DOES NOT matter. Unless it's a real piece of junk, it will have sufficient bandwidth to capture the NTSC Hi8 signal. So get the cheaper one if its specs are full D1 which they probably are. The concern is, if your CCD-TRV98 is still working, that's an absolute miracle. So, don't spend much on the capture device, but be prepared to have someone recap (replace surface mount caps) on your Sony when it stops working. Because with the workload of transferring video to computer, it will. This post was edited by davidrt28 on Wed, Dec 17, 14 at 1:33

Thank you! We are booked and I am so excited! St Petersburg for 6 days in a big house with my sailing friends and their families and then 6 days on Anna Maria island with just my immediate family. I would have reserved the Manasota Key one, I really liked it, but the rental agent was a bad communicator. On a funny note, we have decided to bring our cat. He is so tragically sad when we are away overnight that it would be comic, if it weren't so very tragically sad. He's not destructive or mad, just goes off his food and is lethargic and sometimes wails til he is hoarse. So we are driving 16 hours to Florida with our kitty in the car. When he's with us he's a perfectly content little guy. But we are going to start taking practice drives in the car. It was surprisingly easy to find a rental that would permit him.