Thanks for all your kind comments, looking forward to next year to. Threas - hope you can start them indoors, they're slow growers from seed in the spring, I'll be lucky to get flowers from my babies even next year. I'll be covering the babies soon with dirt for mulch. Not a leaf left in site, some fungus got on the them, so not taking any chances. I have Neem Oil to kill fungus/mold. Has killed the white stuff that grows on the surface of outdoor soil brought in or that grows on unsterile soil. It also kills the bad insects and stops reproduction of them - so they say. honeybunny - I envy that you have the lord baltimore full grown. It grows the tallest of them all, that I'm aware of, and a beautiful red color. It was very good of you to offer plants and I'd be glad to pay you for the plants as well as postage for that price and take a chance that it'll get across the border without dirt. We'll chat come spring. If I've no 'sure thing' canadian option I'll take you up on that and we'll see what you can do. eloise - you have an orange tropical then...I know of no hardy in all my searches (and I have searched) and the oranges are tropicals as are yellow. There are some annuals, like manihot which is a pale yellow, I got one flower from it this year and a seed pod which I had to pluck before it cracked on it's own, an iffy situation. You californians are lucky, you can grow the tropicals all year round. Though they don't grow as big as the hardys we're talking about now. You should check out the japanese lantern hibiscus-schizopetalus, not so large a flower but a most unique flower. It was easy from seed even for me but would of had to be brought in. You'd have to have the room in the garden to, it's a big splayer like the butterfly bushes are. Happytoes - I had seeds for plum crazy, it is up there with my favorites. They have a unique crepe paper like flower and light shines through them like chifon. 5 seeds was just not enough for this lady to successfully grow one. Fireball has the same type of petals. Love your garden karma, especially the style...looks kinda like the japanese rock gardens. Very neat and ideal for specimen show offs. I'd get a kopper king in that garden, it's a good stand alone plant with your personal touches of coarse. Karyn - that is strange, you'd think you would have tons of babies. Maybe they just need that tropical environment the 1st year to get them going. You still have the mom's coming back for you and the only hibiscus I know for sure that'll be invasive with their seeds are the rose of sharon - single blooms - so all be warned. green_go - I gotta have something you want!! I couldn't even find the seeds for that one. I saw the foliage color which you all aught to note the contrast. There's a red veining through 2 others, fireball and plum crazy, but nothing like the foliage on this one. Red shield has a nice foliage as well but doesn't have the bigger sized blooms. The foliage is worth it for those into it. Your flowers are much more prettier than even in the pictures I've seen. They look a lot like the lady baltimore. I'd pay you for a good sized specimen of that plant plus postage. (big hopeful grin). I see you have an anna belle blooming there in the background, I've one of those to. I think I might split the root ball for 2 plants. Granddaughter and I are going to spritz the flowers with food coloring next year. There's a lot more kinds out there, I'd advise starting with an established plant if you want flowers this year. I've no idea how they do their first year started in a greenhouse or indoors. To tell the difference tropicals and hardy when shopping or identifying http://www.trop-hibiscus.com/gindr.html A good link in the hibiscus forum for those in zone 5 and up/colder/lower zone #. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/hibisc/msg0820200032075.html PS. They do die back down to the ground and won't come up until late May early June so don't think they died. You'll just have to wait. Glad you all enjoyed. Happy winter gardening or spring planning. - Sandy

Repeat from another thread-- Did I get a scare when I went on my computer. I got all set and turned on my computer as usual. I can't remember if the welcome screen came but I ended up with a black screen with a dialog box saying: C\windows\system 32\config\systemprofile\Desktop refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive on the computer or on a network. Check to make sure the disk is properly inserted or that you are connected to the Internet or your network and then try again. If it still cannot be located, the information may have been moved to a different location Then the message disappeared when I clicked OK and a black desktop with white blank pages in place of the icons were there and the start button with a few of the system tray items. I didn't have the option to shut down (that I remember) so pressed the power button and it blinked so I hit it again or I did the Ctrl, Alt, Delete and the computer booted up with the welcome screen and came up normal. WHEW! That is all I need? What do you think that was all about? Could it have been caused by the updates I did yesterday before I shut down? Windows 7 64bit

My Vista boots to desktop from the push of the power switch in 40 seconds flat - you can instantly open ie and surf the net and other simple things while everything else continues to load over the next maybe minute and a half. For my opinion;; Vista works almost just like XP, with a quicker boot here. Not a whole lot of difference after you use it a month or so figuring out where the same old things are and personalizing all those little tweaks - and then it ends up looking and acting just like xp. Seems to run the same quickness wether 1gb or 3gb memory with a light load for things like browsing, email, and the basics.

I wanted to update, I just read here about an open office program, but from reading that, I am now worried my old doc need to be all converted to the new office 2007. I saved money buying the student version so it only like 120 dollars on Amazon, but the full version with outlook is super expensive. I never liked outlook. I use gmail and windows calander. It's a new calander on vista. Any suggestions will be appreciated. When I get the new office 2007 student can I help my friend out by reading her old apple files? Will it be able to read apples files, because I heard the newer windows and apple would be compatable. She has some old apple files, she can't read on her new apple computer.