Hi Gail! I am so happy to see that you are still growing clivia. Are they not such a beatiful plant in and out of bloom? So easy to store somewhere until the spring comes back too! I personlly have noticed that mine bloom whether root bound or with room to grow. What I did notice was that the plants that are not with tight roots are all around better looking and more robust than that of the others, which also encourages bigger bloom! I also noticed that inner roots and those roots rubbing up/or surrounded and or strangled by others tend to rot away, even in an open mix when very tight. That is why I don't like letting them get too tight/root bound. The outer roots always seem to be the ones that thrive while teh inner ones can easily fall away in this setup. many times I loose some roots that tend to push themselves out of the soil and sit on top. I just stuck them all outside since they can take very cold temps in our very much appreciated open mixes. It is a myth that they don't like their roots disturbed, or that they have to be root bound to perform well in my case. Just watch for earwigs that set up shop in their crows deep within the leaves. Newgen: I use vinegar at every watering when I think of it. There are some that I know do just fine without being on the acidic side like Clivia and Fragran Osmanthus, along with Hoya which love lime. I would check out your plants needs and find out what range of pH they thrive in. :-) Al: As always great advice since I have learned from the best!:-0)))) Al, is there a great pesticide to use that will prevent erawigs and other critters from crawling into the deep crevice leaf joints near the crown? Thank you I heard that 'Seven' and or 'Diatomaceous' sprinkled into the deep leaf crevices that are attacked to the main trunk works wonders. Please, what is your take? Mike Have a happy day everyone!

I'm glad to see others have the same non-schedule that I have! Normally I start planting annuals from seeds in April, but because the hubby had eye surgery this year and was out of commission, I missed that deadline and will be buying a few annuals. Also I use the old Memorial Day (May 31) as the time to plant things outdoors. Back in winter I ordered about 25 seedling trees so I've been hauling water to them and praying for rain. Four river birch don't look like they will make it and one crabapple and one white birch look iffy, but all the rest seem healthy and are leafed out. My tree planting days are done, except for collecting more cones, apples, and seeds to scatter. Mother Nature will be taking over the reforestation effort from this point on. Also I've been dismantling the paddock fence which looks sort of junky and blocks my view of the vegetable garden from the house. It served a purpose while the pony was with us. Unfortunately when I build something it is built to last, so removing this wire and post structure requires much digging and brute force. It's still a work in progress but I hope to get it done in the next two days. The lawn and pasture are hayfields and I try not to look at the knee high grass. It's depressing, but DH has the green light from his surgeon to mow and to lift things again, so as soon as things dry out he'll be able to see if the lawn tractor can go through. I know I'll be happier when the mowing is done. At least, thank goodness, he can go grocery shopping now without me along to lift the heavier items. He usually shops and I cook, but the division of labor has been skewed during the past month. My vegetable patch has re-seeded itself with sunflowers, so I'm going to take it as a sign and let this year's crop be entirely sunflowers, and maybe add a hill of summer squash. I did clear out the little patio orange garden and planted 3 pots of orange gerbera daisies, as well as nasturtiums from seed in another planter. That is mostly the sum of my gardening efforts this year. All my gardens need weeding and trimming, but I will get to that when I get to that, maybe some time before the snow flies!

Update #2: Thanks to all for the words. We went ahead with the planned walk through over the weekend, even though their agent was trying to delay until today (tuesday). It was an interesting event, after being greeted by their agent as if nothing was wrong, the "to do" list was dissected item by item, until the each item had a tick or cross next to it. Out of 16 items only 3 (very minor) fixes had been done. After several hours of polite verbal bashing by us mostly in regards to the sellers actions and their agents work ethics, (and our agent clarifing real estate regulations) their agent appeared as if he was going to lose it either mentally or physically. At this point we laid down our four options to them. 1. Fix everything with four times the monetary amount held in escrow until close (as determined by third party contractors). 2. Do not fix anything and credit us four times the monetary amount (as determined by third party contractors). 3. We pursue the legal option. 4. We pull out. We would not leave until one of these four options were taken. They opted for number 1 without much resistance. We are heading back this morning (tuesday) for the delayed final walk through. Allegedly most things have been fixed, but we shall see, I will post the results soon.

moccasin - those are some nice lights! i can see why you like them. I bet they're more than 20-30 $s each tho... I loved that the globes come in colors... I'd stay away from the red tho. OTOH that could be good for an emergency signal to a neighbor. I'm too poor to pay much for the lights - even if I find a SWern one i like it's sure to be more than 30.00 and I think I should limit it to that. I need 3 - plus a few (plus) inside need replaced based on they are UGLY. I found these 2 at lowe's. both plain but would do the job - cheaply. it'll probably be the first one unless I find something better for the price in the store. around 25.00 with clean lines. I'd have to see how my chubby little fingers fit for changing the bulb. it's better I don't have to mess with those little screws and chance dropping the globe since things seems to jump out of my hands. I remember changing bulbs in the screw on globe type yrs ago. max wattage is 100w this one is about 21.00. I like it, again clean, simple lines - this one has a frosted globe. has the little screws tho and max wattage is 60w.