Hi papersailor and thanks for the pic's. It's really great to see any plant growing in it's natural habitat. I once saw a massive colony of Calanthe triplicata in full flower. Unfortunately, a short time later the bull-dozers cleared the whole area for timber and the lot was gone for ever. It's certainly a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Thanks for sharing; all the best, Nev

I agree that it depends entirely on the store, the manager, and to a lesser degree, the rest of the help. My local HD is above average for both selection and plant care. (Meaning they generally keep them watered and looking reasonably healthy until they are sold.) Labels are another matter. MOST of the time they are accurate, sometimes not so much so. But the Lowe's is worse. I have been in there when fully half of the perennials were sitting under big signs announcing annuals for sale. This included Mexican sage (salvia leucantha) and Mexican heather (the cuphea). Now most of you know that these are grown as perennials down here, though I suppose it is possible they might be annuals way up north. My local Lowe's DOES have a much nicer selection of garden art, pots and birdfeeders, pond supplies and the like. But it's catch as catch can on how the plants might be looking, and as I say, the labels are usually WAY off. The SuperTarget near me does an above average job, too. They insist on labeling ALL salvias as salvia coccinea, even the little squat red bedding salvias (which I think are salvia splendens or maybe elegans?) and are guilty of other mislabeling, too. But their plants usually look really healthy, and they often have good buys on things like salvia guaranitica and other less common annuals and perennials. They have gorgeous begonias (the fancy leaved ones) and last year had fantastic coleus. The perennial kind. Our WalMart needs Dustin Hoffman in his Rainman role out front...he can just substitute WalMart for K-Mart and be right on the money, if you remember the line. I hate that store. Crowded aisles, messy displays and poor labeling...and that's before you get to the Garden Center, which is worse. That about sums it up for the big boxes in my area, as far as I'm concerned. I shop HD & Target for bargains and/or common plants, since I'm in those stores often anyway, and then I hit the local nurseries for more interesting (and more expensive) things. Marcia

While all of Florida is shown on range maps for sawgrass, I have never come across it in central Florida, myself. It is abundant in the Everglades, of course, and I suppose it crops up around here somewhere, but I really don't believe it would be a grass you would spot around Seminole County regularly. I could be wrong, of course, not being an expert on grass, but my best guess is the one you are asking about is something else. So...let's get us a picture. First thing you do is upload your picture to an online host like Photobucket. (It's free). Once you have your picture on Photobucket, you put a check mark in the box under the thumbnail of the picture, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click on the button that says Generate HTML & Image Code. A page will come up with 5 different codes. Highlight and Copy the second one and paste it into your GW message, et voila! Your picture will show up when you submit your post to GW. An easy way to share pictures here on a regular basis is to set up on album just for GW on Photobucket, and always load your pictures to that album. I have a folder on my desktop especially for Garden Web, and that's where I store mine on my computer. Then I upload from that folder to Photobucket, then do the copy & paste thingie, and the photos are then in your message. Hope this helps! Looking forward to seeing your mystery grass. Marcia

Another Anhinga. I took this photo in July of 2007 at the San Diego Wildlife Park. A couple months ago I Googled this bird and noticed my photo was being used on Wikipedia to show what an Anhinga looked like with a description that reads "Photo by Matt Edmonds. Anhinga drying its' feathers at Sawgrass Park in St. Petersburg, FL 2007" Been meaning to have a word or two with him. grrrrr Jodi-