Diane's Seeds - good amount of seed for good price and great germination Johnny's Seeds - found a few things I wanted all in one place for a change Hardy Plants - family run operation that gets a little behind at times but with a nudge or two mails out seeds and they have extensive selection I can buy Burpee in stores so don't like to pay for shipping unless I need 10 packs for free shipping on Watersuntogether. I've purchased from Park and T&M but expensive unless on sale. Heard from grower that T&M seed aren't always the freshest but don't think they could stay in business all these years if they had a huge problem. Valueseeds is a good buy if you want their limited inventory at the time they're having blowout sale. T&M has changed their website and it's a pain to navigate easily now. When I click on particular seed from internet search I don't get to specific page and have to navigate from their left sidebar. Their search function isn't working dependably either. Maybe it's my computer if no one else is having a problem. Not buyer friendly site for me right now...even to browse and check zone info and pics. Bad thing about online seed purchasing is I end up using 3 or 4 different vendors and paying shipping to each one instead of being able to purchase what I want/need from 1 or 2 vendors. Once the seeds hit the stores I end up impulse buying a little of this and a little of that from any vendor...some of which I never sow or promptly gets eaten by some critter. Select Seeds has a lovely assortment of seeds and plants. Haven't ordered from them yet although if I find a few seeds I can use I'd probably break down. Have no idea what their germination is but I'm genuinely seduced by their site photos and descriptions. I'm so easy.

The Virginia Dept of Forestry is working to preserve and restore native longleaf pines in southeastern VA. They created a database of all longleaf pines more than 50 years old (approximately 200 trees) and are using seed from these trees to grow seedlings. Using seed from other southern states, they also created a healthy stand of longleaf pines in the Suffolk area. For more info about this project, there is a link to a Fact Sheet below. Our local forester thought the Dept of Forestry would make longleaf pine seedlings available through their nursery seedling program this year but the catalog does not list them. I want to devote a portion of land to this tree so am interested in finding sources for longleaf pine seedlings, preferably containerized, from Virginia. My second choice would be containerized seedlings from eastern NC (this is where VA got most of their stock). Does anyone know of native tree nurseries or reputable sources for this tree? Pam Here is a link that might be useful: Preserving Longleaf Pine in Virginia

on a few woodwoorking sites-I think I read the thought is 48 in high max. If you want a taller unit-they supply you with 2 doors to make the total height. Makes sense. Then divide your items into "top and lower" areas. MDF is not that cheap anymore-if you shop around for 5 panel wood framed doors you might come out fine-worth the hunt.

I don't think I could help much, my daughter has the A95 but only uses P mode. Focussing on thorns would be "thorny", pardon the pun, plus you may be trying to shoot in the shade. The camera will likely backfocus on such a small subject, although they like something vertical so if you pick a straight stem you might be ok. Did you try the macro mode? Sometimes you need to use a tripod or other stabilization to avoid camera shake in that mode, but you can get closer. I usually shoot aperture priority, and would be hard put to lock focus on a thorn, and I have a good macro lens now. I would suggest the AV setting and dial in the aperture number. The higher the number, the smaller the lens opening. For flowers, using something in the range of f4 to f5.6 is usually pretty good. You have to experiment. If you want a deep depth of field with everything in the photo in focus, try f8, but then the camera might pick too slow a shutter speed, depending on light. To get a really shallow depth of field with good bokeh in the bg, try the largest lens opening your camera will allow (smallest number). Depending on what it is, you may not get everything you want in focus, like the whole blossom, face, etc. ISO on those p&s cameras will force a faster shutter speed, but then you run into noise problems. I would set the ISO to the smallest number your camera will allow in good light and not bump it up more than two notches. Offhand, I can't think of why your pictures are dark, but bumping the ISO up a little higher might help, not too much or you will get noise. I don't think you can bump it up past ISO 400 anyway, if that. Something else you can try, I think it works in P mode, is to bump up the exposure compensation. If you move it to the plus side, you will have to watch blown highlights. If you move it to the minus side, it might be underexposed/dark. You may have inadvertently reset some setting you shouldn't have in there or something could be wrong with your camera or metering. I would try restoring the camera to the default settings and start over. There should be some place in the menu for that. If you have an option for center point focus, I would use that, but use pattern or evaluative for metering (if you get a choice for that). If you can post a sample showing the exif info, that helps, but only certain programs and saves preserve that. The regular Canon forum on dpreview.com would be a good resource for you to achieve a higher skill level. That camera is capable of taking good photos with the proper skills and knowledge. If all else fails, you can try the flash. You can adjust that through the menu, too, look for FEC. Outside, I would start on the negative side, in -1/3 increments, not going below -1, (same with exposure compensation, don't go below -1 or above +1) because you don't want too much of a blast. It's called fill flash. On those cameras, in bright sunlight situations, you should always probably use about -2/3 to -1 exposure compensation or they will be overexposed and have blown highlights; otherwise, leave it at 0. Now Joe could have answered this with a lot fewer words :-). And I might not have thought of something.