Orientals are the least hardy of the main lily varieties. They like an acid soil and because of their late bloom they sometimes don't have time for the foliage to ripen and feed the bulbs before frost, so the bulbs tend to diminish rather than replenish. That said, my Stargazers have been hanging around for about 10 years now but I usually only get 2 or 3 blooms per stem. Casa Blanca does somewhat better for me, probably because it blooms earlier. Beautiful as the blooms are on the orientals I no longer buy any orientals. I can plant something like Scheherazade and have 40 or more gorgeous blooms on a stem. For me it's a no-brainer.

"It gets no direct sun now whereas it did last year." westy Yes, sun makes a big difference and moving a hosta often sets it back a year or more. Moving it again may half the size again down to 1/4 size. No judgment should be made until a plant has been in a spot for 2 full seasons. I can just see the little fellow cowering when it sees you coming with a shovel hoping you won't notice it is there. Praying to its Japanese ancestors that this round-eyed white woman will leave me alone. If you move it from its current low light spot to high light again will really cause a problem. Here is a link that might be useful: low to high light

My Canary dates are not overwatered. This winter they came in late (some time in December). Since this time, most have only been watered once. Once date palm leaves start to fold, they want water. Also, they get direct, winter sun in that garage as the garage doors are glass and face due south. Also, when you water palms, you should water deeply and thoroughly--otherwise you are just encouraging surface roots. Yes, the Queens are tall but their containers are very light--using those mock ceramic planters or large plastic tubs from HD. Bought a bunch of them at a good price (in a pleasant marine blue/gray color). I can post a picture of the Queens once they get for the season--some time next mouth if the weather stays on course and the groundhog is right.:) It is actually a lot harder to move the Canary palms--prickly, big, and wide. When it really comes time to moving them out for the season, it's not really that hard. I just lift the garage doors and move them out a few feet--dollies and bungees help. I can't wait to get them out! Are you going to keep the Needle containerized? (Mine are planted out on the south side of the house for their second winter.)

On the Laundry Room forum I added the following information. But I am really looking for some guidance in external wiring. No, no overloading. We never used the two highest loads of 'Extra Large' and 'Super'. This is a GE top-load washer. I never had any problems with GE washers, and other GE appliances. My GE refrigerator lasted since 1987, but I replaced it with a more energy-efficient model. It is very difficult to blame a manufacturer or a particular model when it very well might be a problem with the external electric wiring. For that reason I am posting my problem here. Next step might be hiring an electrician to check out the wiring between breaker and wall outlet at the washer. The GE repair man said he would check the external wiring possibly next. Again, this has never happened to me since we own houses since 1974. I basically wonder what's going on here. Having 2 fail in succession is very unusual. First I thought the first one was a lemon, then that the service guy did not know how to fix it. But then the second one failed too. These washers have this new wave action washing, it seems when we pick a water level too high for the amount of clothes, water will swap out of the tub, coming out from under the washer. But any manufacturer should shield the electric parts from water spillage, I hope. We never have overloaded the machine, we actually handled washing with this model the same as we did with its predecessors. We noticed that at times with the second machine we heard something like rifle shots. I guess that could have been shorts in the windings of the motor, it smelled like electric shorts. After it does that for a few days, the agitator/spinning no longer works. These are top-load clothes washers, around $500, no extra whistles, model GTWN4250MOWS. We always bought the same type GE washer. We never had any new appliance fail on us within 6 years after purchase. Here we have 2 fail each after 1/2 year. The home was built in 1978 in a residential suburb. The home builder was well known in the area. When I did some wiring on other circuits, I noticed that they used copper wire and were grounded. Thanks! Bernd