Eduarda ~ Thank you for your wishes across many watery miles. How close the net makes us all feel. DH and I loved Spain, when we lived there for a little over 3 years while he did his duty for the US Navy. We really enjoyed and have good memories of our visit to Lisbon via our VW Bus. I have a beautiful vase (to me) bought there on Valentine's day early 70's. Your pictures of your home in Portugal always make me feel homesick for our home in Spain as newlyweds. Hi there Patti ~ Thank you and yes I had a nice day with DH and my pruners. Memo ~ Thank you. It was really a thoughtful gift and I appreciate that. I enjoyed using those pruners. We had a nice day together. Thank you Cameron. It it a full moon out there but not that we can see. We just went out and there are clouds and sprinkles. I did look at the moon last night and told DH it would be full tonight. Too bad we don't get to see it. Thank you all for your love, hugs and best wishes. They mean a lot to this lady down here in the tropics trying to grow tropical cottage gardens. You are family to me. FlowerLady

O NO F4F!! I'm sorry! I mist daily too, I hadn't thought of the misting, I'm sure that doesn't help things. I am really starting to think that it is just the MG potting soil. Seems like everything I potted using that one bag got it first, then it spread to other plants, maybe from me cross-contaminating while gathering fallen leaves and checking for dryness, etc. I always try to be so careful when i buy potting soil, make sure no buggies flyin around it, and people probably think I am nuts when they see me smelling the bags for mildewy smell. This bag seemed to be fine. Well, I hope I didn't spread it to anyone else, lol. But maybe it'll help others to pay closer attention to their soil if they haven't been, and now they'll know what to do, after all there are SO many helpful links in this thread. Thank you all again for being so helpful! Karyn, yes the peroxide was diluted. Believe me, if it croaks, I'll be bawlin and you'll all know about it, lol. Wow, 71% is totally outrageous. Yeah, it probably is a 2 year thing since that seems to be how it's going here. I need a wind-turbine or 2. Someday when I have a nice big house and land I will have them, and solar panels..screw the elec comp..go green! Daniella

I find that the hummers do use my M. fistula so much so that I actually leave a raised 4'x12' bed of it in the late spring and early summer the hummers and butterflies use it while the annual red salvia is getting ready. Once the salvias and agastaches are blooming, I tear out most of the M. fistula plants so the seeds don't mature and put in other things. Come next spring there will be plenty of it to fill the bed all over again. I think it is a worthwhile plant to add to the "natural" part of a critter garden. I don't even mind the pulling out part since the fragrance of the plants is pleasant and my sheep gleefully eat the plants. spiderwoman

Rant: Once the yuppies get ahold of an idea to sell for big bucks... once packaged, the grassroots are instantly fried when it comes to those who's lives could truly benefit from its concept--the poor. The assumption now rules of, "if someone can make money off implementing these ideas, so am I". Well, not everyone is out to become a wealthy organic permie farmer! Mollison and Holmgren brought the narrow growth of permaculture upon themselves from the get-go by continually being paid big bucks to hoick permaculture to the non-poor, (who, more often than not--and much to everyone's chagrin, have freebooted permaculture's basic ideals and actually make them work--without any "experts" fancy-schmancy financial input!) Permaculture founders could have burst on the scene for free for the greater good of all Mankind, like Alexander Graham Bell's (who's freely given inventions are still with us). But, nooooo..... There goes a profoundly worthwhile ideal before it ever got off the global ground and changed the world. Nowadays you cannot get within an official "permaculture course" outside of a few thousand bucks. Greed rules, even there. Nothing changed, Bill and Dave. Just the scenery inside your heads. And don't ever believe that they don't make money off permaculture. Their conference speaking fees rival former president Clinton's. But, thank God for the internet, where anyone can search out permaculture basics and take it from there, without expensive "permie teachers" droning on. IF they have access to a computer, that is. Few poor do.