CB, is Elephant's Foot the same as Ponytail Palm/Beaucarnea? If so, Beaucarnea's are very interesting, especially when mature, as the trunk thickens..Guess it does resemble an elephant's foot. lol There are even variegated Elephant's Foot/feet, some w/stripes, others with yellow dots. Another with red hue foliage, if given very bright/direct sun. Don't know if it matters, but Beaucarnea's are slow-growers. If you're looking for a taller plant, purchase a 3-4 footer. Home Depot sells Elephant's Foot in 10" pots. As long as EF isn't over-watered, it basically cares for itself. They can be grown as bonsai, too. CB, what grade do you teach? 'if you don't mind me asking.' Some plants are poisonous..if you're teaching young children, they should be aware not to touch plant/s. Even if a plant isn't toxic, too much handling can cause problems for the plant. How tall is your avocado? Does it have any leaves? The person to ask about avocado care is Greenman/Josh. Did you start your 'cado from a pit? Ever prune the top? What happens to the leaves before dropping? There are two succulents called Jelly Beans. One is known as Donkey Tail, Sedum morganianum, the second is, Red Jelly bean, Sedum Rubrotinctum, rubra.' There are many beautiful Bromiliads. The only problem with Broms is, while in flower, the mother plant is dying a little each day..It takes months to a year before mom is a goner, in the meantime, off-shoots grow from mom. They can be removed w/some roots, then potted in a separate pot. With a little work, you can keep Broms, from the mom plant forever. Mimosa's are very pretty plants. Love their leaves, but in cold areas they're grown as annuals. Over-wintering indoors 'can' be a real chore. You always have to be on the look-out for insects during winter months. CB, are you growing plants for your students or yourself? lol. Have you considered citrus? IMO, lemons do best indoors. Since some citrus bloom/fruit year round, can you imagine little fruits and sweet-smelling flowers growing off a tree/bush, in mid-winter? I hope you find a plant you love. A SW window, and summer outdoors, is a great start..Toni

Well, you are going to have to choose...Tell us which one describes you most... 1) Do you have kids? Pets? Do you spend a lot of time "on" the lawn? If so, you might want to consider organic lawn care. 2) Do you rarely go out on the lawn? Have no kids and no pets? If so, a basic "Scotts 4-step" type program will be fine for you. First I will give you the PRO-organic pitch, then the "flip side". pro-organic: Many people think that you need synthetic fertilizers and weed controls to have a beautiful lawn. The fact is that you can get a very dark lawn - in fact, in many cases, DARKER than synthetics - by putting down natural products. You can even do it for cheaper than you would with a Scotts type program. Best of all, these products can't hurt you, and your entire family (and pets!) can go outside and lay in the lawn immediately after an application. You feel good that you are doing the right thing for your family AND the environment! the flip side: The downside of organic is that it isn't the quick fix that most people are looking for. Synthetic fertilizers can make crappy soil behave somewhat like good soil, but if you want bad soil to actually BE good, then you have to put in some time with organic products. On top of that, there is no one-shot spray that will kill weeds quite the same way as they have in the synthetic world. Corn meal gluten (a natural product) supposedly helps by stopping the weeds before they grow up to annoy you, but it isn't as good as the synthetic alternative. The best way to stop weeds is by growing a GREAT lawn that is so thick that it chokes out the weeds. That takes time. If you want to mix the synthetic with organic, I would say to do the following: 1) start off with Scotts step 1. It has a preemergent which will stop most weeds from germinating. 2) for all other applications, apply soy bean meal, which can be purchased at a feed store. This will feed the lawn by feeding the soil. It really works! 3) study up a bit on organic lawncare so you can eventually wean yourself off Scotts step 1. 4) overseed in the fall - every fall - until your lawn is so thick that weeds have a hard time finding a place to grow....and always mow high (about 3 inches) so you can further crowd out weeds and retain moisture, and don't bag those clippings (they feed the soil!)

The winner of the Popularity Poll will be announced also on October 27th. Only garden judges can vote for the AHS Awards & Honors. There are requirements that must be met for a garden judge to consider and it should be more than it is pretty so I will vote for it. Unfortunately the better distribution a flower has the more votes it will get because of exposure. This means that a daylily that increases rapidly or is from a more popular hybridizer is more likely to get votes than an equally worthy daylily that remains relatively unknown. We had a member here in San Diego that only registered one daylily but Cordon Bleu, a major mail order business in the past, gave EYE YI YI to everone that placed an order for two years. As a result it got enough distribution to receive an 'honorable mention' award. One equally deserving, GRANDIOUSE never got good distribution and is only know by a handful of individuals. Any member of the AHS can vote in the popularity poll and the requirements are very relaxed. Some will look at the popularity poll as being more viable than the Stout Medal. The process to get on the list for the Stout Medal assures that the cultivar will be, in most cases, ten to twenty years from introduction. The popularity poll will always include more recent introductions than the stout and to some degree those that place high on the popularity poll will also place high on the Stout later on but not necesarily win the Stout as the reqirements for the Stout will pull some of the popularity poll winners off the list. To get on the Stout list a cultivar must have recieved the Award of Merit a minimum of two years previously. To get an Award of Merit a cultivar must receive votes from at least one-half of the AHS regions, and not more than one-third of the total votes credited to the cultivar shall come from any one region. It must have received an Honorable Mention Award a minimum of three years previously. Now here is the rub! It is the hybridizer who nominates their own cultivar for the Honorable Mention Award. Some will nominate their cultivar just to have it on the list to increase sales or for other personal reasons. That does not mean the cultivars there are not deserving because it is the judges who vote but it does determine which cultivars they can vote for. With the Popularity Poll there are no such restrictions. A word of caution though if you make purchases based on the Popularity Poll you should only consider the results of your own region or at best similar regions. I used to tabulate the popularity poll and when the two largest regions' results were in I knew the national winners without looking at any of the other regions results. This is because the larger regions would have about 140 votes for the top cultivar while the smaller regions might have 1-9 votes for that same cultivar. The smaller regions do not have enough votes to affect the national outcome. If I had my way the National Distribution would not be part of the Popularity Poll published results.

Can I be frank? For some background on us, we built our "dream home" last year with an unscrupulous builder and will be working out the kinks--those that ARE workable, anyway--for several years. We actually thought we were building WELL within our means and due to all the overruns and unexpected costs (building permits, utility taps, etc., etc.) we ended up just about $100 less per month on the mortgage of our last house. Anyway, DH was NOT into building at all and I dragged him kicking and screaming and wished I hadn't. We'd LOVE to sell now but we would take such a loss that we are hanging in there for a few years. So that's our perspective. Anyway, this may not be popular on the "building a home" forum, but my DH's and my advice to you is to sell and then BUY an existing home, NOT build. While the real estate market is down, the costs of building a home are the same. Building is such a slippery slope of hidden and uncontrollable costs. What if you go through all that and still don't save that much? Why not sell then buy a house that is sitting there that you KNOW the exact cost? In this market, you can definitely get more house than ever before. AND, you avoid the nightmare of building while having little ones, which I also personally experienced. Just MHO. Good luck!