Fiesta will be on about the same time next year, so will look forward to seeing you then BA! We did have a few Aussies drop in to this show, and it would be great to have more come over the ditch for 2011. Most of the foliage VrieseaÂs are NZ bred. In fact the show table with that Vriesea you like is to show off NZ hybrid broms. Vriesea won all the prizes in this section, & they really are fantastic plants. Here are some of the other NZ hybrids that were displayed on this table. Neo Carnival, nice nice hybrid from NZ's well known hybridiser, Gerry Stansfield. A neo Tigrina hybrid that shows a hint of centre flush. Billbergia hybrid, this one has recently been named Billbergia Brazen. And I put two of my own neo hybrids into this section; A little Tiger Cub hybrid to the left, & a Gorrion hybrid. The Tiger Cub hybrid is about 3.5 yrs from seed, it has produced 5 pups, 1 of which is about to flower, while the Gorrion hybrid is 5 yrs from seed, & no hint of pups or flowering. I kinda like this one as it has unusual colouring, & even tho itÂs a slow grower itÂs developing a nice rosette so will be interest to see how it matures. I wish there was an easier way we could exchange plants Nev, may be we have to breed them with resistance to the gas ?! There are many plants IÂd love to get hold of from AussieÂitÂd be nice if we could just do a simple swap. DidnÂt get the names of those two purple Vriesea from the display Chris, IÂm sure they would be Andrew Maloy hybridsÂunfortunately J&A were away, I normally rely on them to get all the Vriesea pics & infoÂsince IÂm so neo focused ;-) But I did make a point of getting picÂs of all the Vriesea on show, so may set up a different post for these.

Sorry about not being able to answer your questions Tennesseestorm. This is the first time I've been logged into this site in over 6 months! Now to your questions. I saw on another Spanish Moss forum that it is cold hardy to 5 degrees. It has survived here to temps. as low as 8 degrees thats all the colder it's been here in the last 2 years which is the legnth of time I've been growing spanish moss here. When single digits or an ice storm warning are predicted it comes into the garage or an unheated room just long enough for the nastyness to pass then its back outside. Also I have not misted my moss in about a year(except for the drought last summer) and it is still doing great. in regards to your moss that died the moss needs to have as close to the original light conditions as possible or it could be burned up if it was originally in the shade and is moved to a sunny exposure. I had the same thing happen to me and it was all taken from part shade and moved to afternoon sun. Due to this error I lost half of my new moss chunks. I need a clarification. Did you say it was dead even before you took it out of the box? If so how long was it in there? If I missed any questions or you have anymore feel free to ask. Started a new area of plant emphasis, hardy cacti and succulents. I am also growin a Balsam fir, American larch, and Dawn Redwood. So far as I know I am the only person in this part of TN (middle TN) grow the first 2 trees listed. Also have other plant stuff to talk about if interested.

On the local TV news the other night, they were reporting that many farmers in southern Oklahoma and northern Texas have lost 100% of their crops to excessive moisture in the form of rainfall/constantly wet soil/floodwaters. So, I was thinking to myself that a lot of us may be getting less of a veggie harvest, but at least we haven't lost 100%, right? Ilene, I have talked to lots of 'old farmers/old ranchers' who live in our area (many of them, sadly, have passed away in recent years ) and many of them have told me over and over that all they had to eat in their early years in Oklahoma were whatever crops they could raise or find via foraging/hunting/gathering and whatever game they could shoot. They said that it was a constant struggle to survive, and of course, none of them had any problems with weight gain or obesity. They also said that if one family or another suffered a crop failure, the other local families tried to share what they had so the family would survive. How very spoiled we are by comparison! My dad was one of 11 children. His family was, by his own description, 'poor, white sharecroppers' in the Spanish Fort (Montague County, Texas) area in the 1920s/30s. He said they pretty much lived on whatever crops survived. They usually had a good crop of pinto beans and corn, which they dried and stored for winter. He said they often ate corn meal mush for breakfast, cornbread and whatever else was available for lunch, and cornbread and pinto beans for dinner, day after day after day. How many of us would do that and be glad to have even that food? He did say that they often had good veggies from their own gardens all summer and fall, plus whatever they could put up for winter, and meat was more of a 'treat' or a 'condiment' with veggies and bread being the main portion of the meal, and only small portions of meat available. During the good years that they made a good crop, they would have enough cash to buy salt, flour, baking powder, etc. During bad times they had beans and corn. They usually had their own milk and butter from their own cow, but usually the babies and youngest children got all the milk. Once a year they each got one orange to eat--at Christmas--and that plus a couple of nuts and one or two pieces of Christmas candy was their Christmas gift. Local folks here who are slightly younger than my dad remember a similar lifestyle up to World War II, which gave many young men a chance to get off the farm and earn some badly needed money to send home to 'the folks'. They say that growing a big garden that produced a lot of food for the family was considered a HUGE mark of achievement, and that the local families were quite competitive with one another to see who could feed their family best with what they raised. Frankly, I don't know how they did it. I raise a lot of fruit and veggies, and have great success most years, but if we had to live ONLY off what I could grow or find by foraging (wild berries, fruit, etc.), my family would all be stick-thin! Thankfully we don't have to raise all our own food nowadays! PURPLE CHEROKEE--now that is a great tomato and one of my all time favorites. We just love them. This year they have been HUGE, about twice the size I usually get, and fairly tasty--their flavor isn't quite as good as it is most years, but it is still not as watered-down as many other tomatoes are this year. Black Krim is still our favorite. Brandywine would be our favorite based on flavor alone, but their low productivity keeps them from being our #1 tomato. I am going to (hopefully--and if the weather works with me and not against me) yank out a lot of the spring-planted tomatoes this week, and replace them with new plants for fall tomatoes. I don't usually take out the cherry, grape or currant types as they produce well all summer anyway. The tomatoes that are removed are sort of removed in the order in which they began fruiting--so those that produced ripe fruit beginning in very late April are already gone, those that produced ripe fruit in May/June will soon be gone, and those late ones that are just now producing ripe fruit will get to live until they stop producing, or until the July-planted tomatoes start producing. Sagenscotties, My paste tomatoes have only been so-so this year too. In general, paste tomatoes are more prone to both blossom-end rot and foliar disease when it is excessively wet. However, I am getting tons of big 'uns so I have been using a mixture of big 'uns to make spaghetti sauce and other tomato-based meals like chicken-tortilla soup or taco soup. The larger tomatoes take longer to boil down, of course, since they have a higher water content--especially this year--but they make tasty cooked tomatoes. I'm probably not even going to plant the paste tomatoes I have raised from seed for fall unless we have a sudden drying trend here. I don't see any point in expending the energy to plant them if they aren't going to do any better than the spring-planted paste tomatoes did. There are a couple of exceptions--Orange Banana has produced quite well, and so has Bisignano #2. Dawn

BinsB How GREAT! I'd guess by now the 'kids' are knocking from the outside - yes? Paleese post a pic if you can. We'd all (I'm sure) love to see your accomplishments :-))) after waiting soooo long. Love the orange colors of the nursery but mmm - are they really going to sleep in one crib? :-)) Just kidding. When you have time, which likely won't be for awhile I'm sure, would love to see the nursery with the paper flowers, et al. Not to worry about the non-span house of present. It's the spirit inside that can carry it thru. Imagine what a tough time I have in my location. LOL!! You'll have lotsa fun (when/if you can find the time) doing some special stuff in your new abode. Trop - hmmm pictures this year? LOL! That will be fun to see. I'll look forward (but won't hold my breath too awfully long). :-))) I'm thinking maybe you just eliminated the kitchen altogether and are doing take out now? Houseful it's great to have you posting again. Perhaps you can help us breathe some life back into this thread as I know Bins is going to be rather busy over the next while. :-)) If it weren't for her dedication, I'm sure this thread would no longer exist. I have a few things on my plate but hopefully they will be resolved shortly and I can return to my decorating love. And speaking of thread(s), I didn't check but I'm thinking we must be getting close to limit - yes? Should we be starting a new thread? Waddya all think? Take care all, Holly