Meet and Greet - Please Introduce yourself!
claire_de_luna
16 years ago
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claire_de_luna
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agolobsterbird
16 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (9)Well, bonsai 'soil' is not soil, or only in tiny bits, if that (those?). It's mostly some version of grit, ranging anywhere from 'chicken grit' available at farm feed stores (lots of those in TO :-) to something called turface, which is very popular, which I dislike and which used to be available at Can Tire under the name of Profile in big bags. I and a lot of people just use natural colored gravel made for aquariums from anywhere that sells fish. You can use the pea sized enamel painted ones and/or mix them with the tiny glassy type, a bit small on its own, but ok otherwise. I also throw in some perlite for weight relief, but not everyone likes it. Very important for conifers is the organic component, which could be well rotted compost, leaf mold, etc., but is more usually small bark bits (1/16" to l/8") and probably easier to find at a nursery or garden ctre than elsewhere - mulch is good but is often shredded into long skinny bits that compact, or else into nuggets that are too large. A good bet are the pieces in a bag of Schultz Orchid Mix and they're more readily available all over. The pieces look big but easily break into smaller ones. You'd use this 'component' for about 15-20% of the mix vs the grit. The real trick is just not to use 'potting soil', which is normally 99% peat, and that compacts over time if allowed to dry out at all, making it hard for roots to drink (the peat holds water forever, rotting roots, but if dry, is really hard to get wet again too). You can get porous, larger particle soil at garden centres the point being that water runs through very quickly, so watering more often is not the disaster it normally is if a tree stays in the c(*&[p they usually come in. Go to www.bonsaisite.com and look at their Soil forum (under General Discussion) for tons more ideas and info. Just remember it's mostly U.S. people and they have more components (like lava rock) available in various places that we don't....See MoreMeet and greet
Comments (4)Hi Barbara, Great Idea! My name is Fred Hill and I am a retired Art teacher from NJ. June marks my 11th year of retirement so you can see I'm no spring chicken, just and old rooster. My wife and I lived in Bergen County NJ for 37 years and raised two children, a boy Scott and a girl Christine. Both children are on their own, Scott is single and Chrisine is married with two children. We are known to them as Meema and Peepa. My first attempt at growing AV's was with two that I salvaged from a local supermarket. To my delight they grew and bloomed with the help and encouragement of a collegue who was a member of a local club. It just happened that my violets were in bloom at the time of their show and she suggested I enter them. I won blue ribbons on both and of course I was hooked. I joined the club in 1981 and have been a club member since then. My collection grew by leaps and bounds and before I knew it I had about 75 plants in my basement. Since then my collection has varied from 100 to 200 plants but now I have cut back and have about 75 again. Three years after joining the club I was elected president and served two years, then another two as secretary and two more back as president again. Seems like I am always holding an office. About ten years later I went to a judging school, took the test, passed and became a student judge. Three years later I passed the advanced test and took it three more times. With four 90+ scores under my belt I was eligible to take the senior exam. I have taken it twice now and after I pass next year I will get my gold card. During the intervening years I joined the Tristate AV Council and the NJ Council of AV Judges. I have been a member of both groups now for almost 20 years. For some stroke of bad luck I was elected president and held the office for 8 years. I just recently abdicated.......lol. I am the current treasurer of the judges council and have been for the last 12 years. When I retired in '97 we sold our house in NNJ and moved to an adult community in Columbus NJ. I am now a memeber of the Garden State AV Club which is the oldest local in the state.....oh and I am the current recording secretary. The club has a web site which I have linked below. I hope my intro wasn't too boring or long. When you get a chance check out the clubs web site. It's a little out of date but still nice to look at. Fred in NJ Here is a link that might be useful: Garden State African Violet Club....See Moreplease allow me to introduce myself!!
Comments (24)Welcome aboard, Karen! You'll find most CFers to be friendly and have spirited discussions, with lots of opinions but very few flames or trolls. There are a few taboo topics which can never be resolved, such as the presence of flour and sugar in cornbread, but even such discussions are generally pleasant...which leads me, indirectly, to my story of a huge culinary disaster. Christmas dinner some years ago...had a dozen or so guests, gonna make a nice rib roast. As a side dish, some cornbread dressing... so I'm making a big batch of cornbread to make the dressing. A quadruple batch, in fact, in a big 14x17 pan, batter filling it nearly to the rim. Oven preheated to a sizzling 450. I open the oven and pull out the oven rack, and place the heavy batter-filled pan on the oven rack. Unfortunately, the oven rack had not been placed properly before I pulled it out, and the little hook on the far end of the rack was not engaged, so when the heavy pan was placed on one end of the rack, the other end reacted to the laws of physics, turning the whole setup into a see-saw. The batter pan not only fell, but it flipped open side down onto the interior of the HOT oven door. Batter sizzled then scorched in place. Wet batter oozed off the sides of the door and onto the floor. So about an hour and a half before I'm to serve dinner to my guests, I have no cornbread to make dressing with, and a humongous mess to clean up on the floor and in my oven. One of my favorite lines from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: Clark:"Dad, how did you make it through all these Christmases?" Dad: "I had a lot of help from a pal named Jack Daniels." Just so....See MorePlease Introduce Yourself!
Comments (120)Hi. Joining this long thread a little late. My name is Lisa. I'm 35 and currently a SAHM to two boys, ages 6 1/2 and 4. I finished a post-doc in Clinical Psychology 2 1/2 years ago, before moving from Chicago to the Philly area. I plan to go back to work part-time some day but haven't taken steps in that direction yet. I've been married for 10 years to my dh Scott who is a Neurologist specializing in Epilepsy. This is our 2nd house. We've lived here for 2 1/2 years. It's a new construction house, though we didn't design it (when we purchased it, it was 95% finished). It's (to our mind) not particularly attractive on the outside, but it is very spacious inside and didn't need renovation. That was key for us, as we moved here with very small kids and had just worked hard renovating parts our old house in the suburbs of Chicago. New construction is an anomoly in our neighborhood. The builder had torn down one house, split the lot, and built two houses on it, facing the other direction. So what we have is a big house on a small lot and a funny shaped (long and narrow) back yard. No one has big yards in our neighborhood, and the neighborhood has an "urban light" feel to it, with side walks and homes built close together. We actually like this--we like knowing our neighbors and being able to walk, ride bikes, etc. on the sidewalks. We walk our oldest to 1st grade, which is wonderful as well. I like decorating but feel I am a complete novice at it. I am one of those people who know what I like when I see it but can't always imagine it in my head. Strange for me, since I consider myself a fairly creative person. I guess this is a art unto itself. We have a lot of white walls that need painting rooms that need tweaking. I just keep telling myself that it's a process and there's no hurry. Here are my boys celebrating Hanukkah this year: Here's a family pic. Had to go back to last April to find one of the 4 of us! Here, you can see some of the front of our house (stucco in front, siding and stucco on sides and back):...See Morecynandjon
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