i had a hard time accessing this, which prairiemoon linked to, above, so here it is. Daffodils are blooming scarce this springThe long, cold winter means traditional spring flowers are thin on the ground, especially at the Thriplow daffodil festival Post your spring photographs on our Flickr group (9)Tweet this (22)Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 March 2010 12.47 GMT Article history A host of daffodils. A sight we have yet to see this year. Photograph: Sean Smith Visitors will pause in wonder, and murmur rapturously with William Wordsworth: "Âwhen all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of bare green stalks, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Rattling stiffly in the breeze." Despite promises from the Met office of a belated outbreak of spring, with the warmest day of the year  up to 15C forecast today for London and much of the south  the village of Thriplow in Hertfordshire has a unique feature to offer visitors to its 42nd annual daffodil festival this weekend: no daffodils. The tonnes of daffodil bulbs planted along the pretty village's lanes, gardens and green attract up to 10,000 visitors, and this year they will see an awe-inspiring display of stalks. The organisers spend much of the year second guessing the weather: the date of the very first festival, held in 1969 to raise funds to repair the parish church, was put back after a very cold snap; in 1977 the flowers were out but smothered in a heavy snowfall the following day; and even in 1979, after an equally bitter winter, there was but one daffodil in bloom. Lynne Turner, a member of the daffodil committee, said: "It's a bit hard as I have to do all the publicity months in advance, and I don't know what the weather will be like so I say the village will be swathed in daffodils. Nine times out of 10 it is." The village promises that there will still be teas, morris dancing, sheep dogs, and an early May pole. To the dismay of Cumbrian tourism officials, daffodils are also distinctly thin on the ground in Wordsworth's back yard. Eric Robson, chair of Cumbria tourism and the presenter of BBC Radio Four's Gardener's Question Time, said: "It's virtually unheard of not to have seen a single daffodil in the Lake District by the middle of March." In fact the tourist office is urging visitors to email or tweet any sightings. Robson added: "The upside is that because they are late, it means they should be out and looking their best for the Easter holidays." At Dove Cottage, Wordsworth's home in the Lake District, Paul Kleian said: "We have crocuses and snowdrops out in the garden, but no daffodils yet  but they are in bud, so we may have some by the weekend. "Interestingly that famous diary entry by Dorothy Wordsworth which inspired the poem was written on 15 April 1802. The early blooming daffodils which people have got used to seeing are non-native imported species." With one of the many first days of spring approaching  the spring equinox, on 20-21 March, though the Met Office takes 1 March as the first day, and the Irish date it from St Bridget's Day on 1 February  the longest coldest winter in a generation does finally seem to have shuffled off. The forecast is for mild, showery, breezy weather  with more rain by the weekend. And after months when the weather map was splattered with orange and red warnings, there's isn't a single severe weather warning anywhere in the UK. Which can only mean there's more snow on the way.

Well it died. =[ The tinyyyy spear that was inside of it pulled. Along with two of the fronds at the same time. Almost the entire inside of the palm was rotted out. I lost a lot of my palms this winter, and all I have left right now is a queen palm. Shes holding on strong though. I did read on here that pam cooking spray could be used to get rid of mites in multiple posts when I typed spider mites into the search bar. I thought it sounded crazy too, but it killed them, so I subscribed to the idea. I guess I know to just rinse rinse rinse next time. I'll also improve my soil mix for all my future palms. No more miracle grow for me! I think my other mistake was trying to imitate their environment in the summer too much. I should have been trying to keep them cool and dormant instead of warm and wet with limited light. Sorry it took so long for me to respond. I left this post when it seemed relatively dead, but then I come back and there's 29 responses! hahaha

I'm pretty sure it's GW, not google. It's another in the long list of glitches that GW/iVillage is apparently aware of and supposedly is working on. But there has been zero improvement since this started two weeks or so back. It does render the site pretty useless from an archive standpoint... all that valuable information lost. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. All I can figure is that the current 67 pages are available, but everything else is gone unless they get it fixed. I had bookmarked a number of pages for reference and can't access half or more of them. At least we all still have each other to answer questions, but it means starting over again every time a question is asked.

Well when I searched by my name I found all of my threads gone even though they were less than a month old but some threads that were MUCH older were still there. Maybe someone went in and made a decision of what they thought was interesting. It is kind of aggravating because I was in the middle of my kitchen remodel and needed to ask questions and starting over seemed fruitless. I love this forum but it does need work! I would like to be able to look up my threads, if I forget to check the box to send me a response to go back later and get a response, to be able to be able to watch a thread, to be able to find my clippings easily and a lot more stuff. In other words it needs a major overhaul. I can not even find a way to provide feedback! Well thanks yall for letting me vent. I will be posting finished photos soon, for those of you who have been keeping up with my "budget" renovation. Thanks for the support. I got lots of ideas on here and my house will show it. Here is a link that might be useful: My Country Dream