My experience with sangs has been less than exciting. I grew 8 plants from seeds (4 orange and 4 red) and the plants grew well. At the end of the 1rst year, they just started to Y and I got 2 blooms (pale due to the weak light at the end of Oct.). Not bad for the 1rst year. I grew them in pots and stored them in my garage over winter. Last year I continued to grow them...even here in the PNW they required filtered light or shade from late morning on. They grew on and on, but again I didn't see buds until time for frost. I do love how fuzzy these plants are, but getting them to bloom is far more difficult than any of the other brugs I've grown. I've given away all but 1 of each color and the '07 season is going to be the "make it or break it" year for the last 2. If you have brugs you got as cuttings labeled as sanguineas, you probably have something else! Sanguineas have a reputation for being very difficult to start from cuttings. While KHT may have the right touch for making it happen, most people are going to be hard-pressed to do so. I can certainly find better use for the space the sangs took up last year. My garden is going to be really full with all the new cuttings I acquired last fall, not to mention the 11 dozen brug seeds I started less than a month ago (already I have 67 seedlings!). The 11 hybrid crosses contain genes from a number of exciting newer cultivars. Trialing these seedlings will be a real adventure. Patrick

Hello all, I am a newbie, living in western ,NY, don't know the zone,sorry. first time in cottage gardens. I just had to write, because I was just watering the Lemon Balm I bought last week , it is in a pot in my garden window and I thought to myself, I should plant that outside !! ..haha i am so glad i came on here. I am finally getting my back yard to use for growing plants and for letting the wild things grow:) Before with 4 very sport minded kids it was a basketball court and vollyball court, now I have let part of the wetlands grow as it likes ... we keep it mowed in a manageable size, well I think we will be able to manage it. I also let some of my woody are grow free and now I have wild rasberries I think? and lots of stuff I don't know what they are. I also threw some cosmos seeds and other seeds my mum brought me over from england. so I will be back here with pictures for help, as soon as i can figure out how to work my new digatal camera, and upload picture, i am a newbie at everything, I guess my garden life begins at 6o:) Oh I have one queation, I have a bush/tree tha that what looks like golfballs on it, does anybody know what it could be, if they had a nike mark on them I would use them.. Thanks for any help you can give, sorry this is so long I am just so excited to have found this site. Cheerio for now, Rose

Well, a "thread" that's been around, inactive a while, but "such a pertinent" subject is it not...at least to those of us who, as the author specifies, are participating admittedly at least somewhat for business reasons. I mean, if a person can be in such things, for the enjoyment and experience or something, fine..while if otherwise minded, or open or interested in more, then equally, why not? isn't it? Much as I prefer or probably "would" (ideally) my gardening pursuits or at least those that go beyond direct, bread on the table employment (various plant related ones in myt case), one of my extra involvements is definitely aimed for the commercial side of things. If it -- a disease-curing-via-immunity effort, ultimately succeeds it;d look like a commercial thing anyway, so why not partly for me as the originator in the first place? I think there are "quite naturally" many of us in the position of being mindful sometimes, of the commercial side. And I've discovered just now, the existence of at least one plant development company--in fact openly inviting submissions of material for no-cost development/promotion by them, with income apparently to be shared later. Assuming others may be interested, then if advised permissable, I'd be glad to post its name, URL, hint how to find it, or whatever--been somewhat of a long time, since I"ve posted here, and am concerned about breaking rules (or being thought a promoter or related party of the site I refer--which I'm not). Additionally, would love feedback on what others might think of my own, very active effort, such as, as what you might notice or see regarding it, going by anything relevant (your own experience, knowledge, etc). It's a long ongoing project to try, based mostly on my efforts to innoculate a certain small fruit bush to a disease pathogen that troubles it, and evaluate resistance and proceed to try to prove the resistance. The ultimate goal is one or specimens of full immunity, which seems could have commercial potential as source of whatever's in it (genetically; a specific gene I think) for then, transferring into commercial varieties (cultivars) of this fruit. I've just written to a couple of entities, one of them being our (USA) University based "Experiment Stations" working specifically with the genera of plants which my experimental plant lies in. Written because by now, I have some specimens that have been symptom free under heavy disease pressure, for long enough, that it definitely seems time to get a recognized agency involved doing further or final tests. One would simply be lab review of tissue material from my plants, to prove or disprove absence of this disease. Has reportedly been done before, with this very , exact disease. But, assuming optimistically they answer with some offer: is that going to prove to be an offer of services for a fee? Or the partnering I hinted at?

The past three years my nephews were all given money for Christmas. The first year, I glued a stack of 50 brand new crisp $1 bills together to create a book out of them, just like what was mention above. The second year, I did the 2-liter bottle thing. I pit a slit in the plastic, crumpled up the money loosley then applied a new, personalized label when the original label would be to cover up the slit I made. To make it more difficult for them to open the bottle, I glued the cap on. Because the money was loosely crumpled, it took them a bit of thinking before they found out how I got the money in there in the first place. Now that I think of it, I should have done some sort of origami folding of the money so they would have really been scratching their heads. I finished off the bottle with curling ribbon around the neck Last year, my mom rolled the money up in toilet paper (still on the roll of course) then wrapped it in various boxes from around the house (Mac n' cheese, pop tarts, etc.) This year, I plan to do something different; different than I've done in the past and different for each nephew (5 of them). In the past, since they all got the cash in the same way, once one of them opened the gift containing the money, the rest of them were not as surprised. I have to say that the money pad was by far the biggest hit. My son didn't want to spend which I was happy he was saving it but on the other hand he didn't want to put it in the bank either. Oh well, at least he didn't spend it foolishly, right. Lastly, if you are going to gift money, plan ahead so you can get brand new crisp bills. If the bank does not have any/enough, I'm sure if you ask them to "order" you some they will do it. New, crisp bills makes for a better gift! For this year I am for sure going to do the cold hard cash and the umbrella ideas....now I just need to find 3 more and I'll be set!