Hi Patty, Thanks again for all your usefull info. You mention the fact that 'Kishu' is a smaller fruit, so small that it prevents it from being a grocery store citrus. This fact is one of the #1 reasons why I chose to buy it. Small fruits mature and ripen much faster. From what you told me before, it sounds like 'Page' will be the same way. I have had my 'ORo Blanco' now for 1 full year now. Over the past winter(I would say up to December), it had 4 nice sized fruits. They continued to grow and mature but sadly they all dropped, and I would say that they only maybe had another month or 2 to go before being fully mature and ripe. I know my problem was that I didn't have enough space for all my tropicals and tropical fruit trees. I alson new that they needed more light but I figure the tree was still too small and now it can concentrate on growing larger and taller. I still will be hoping to get my hands on the Minneola and hopefully if I make it to FL this summer, I can pick one up and ship it back home to me. If I cannot wait that long to get it(when I really want something like that, I tend to get impatient..LMAO!!) I will either order it from Four Winds or try to order it from my local nursery. Hi Mike, I am all ready growing my tropicals in my 2 bedrooms! One I use for figs, plumerias, and a few of my tropicals such as my passionfruit vine and my keylime. I also have Laura'a agave in there. The other I Have my HPS light in and that's where the rest are except for my 'Star Ruby' which is in my living room right now. When I went to Potratz, they had HPS or Hallide lights for sale along with T5's. I was really happy to see this! I plan on buying a new light set up here and there this summer. That way by the time winter roles around again, I will be all prepared and my newly growing citrus collection will have all the light they need...along with the mango and other tropical fruit collections! I really am going to have to stop otherwise I will not have anymore room in this apartment! Were going to have to make a decision on if were going to live in NY or if were going to move FLorida. You know I would much rather live in FL! Mike, I forgot to ask you....if you plan on another trip to Logees, PLEASE let me know!! I have a few things I would like to get there. Another 'Day' avocado, the yellow gardenia, and if they have a decent sized HEALTHY Minneola, I would like that too!! It really does make a BIG diffrence to have a trusted friend(not only a good friend like you but someone who also loves there plants!) to hand pick the plants. Hi Laura, WOW sounds like the PHL flower show was a success! Between you and I, I hate the noids! You don't know what you really have and then if you go and buy something else that's similar or not blooming, you run the risk of getting another noid! I did lose around 7 or 8 plumerias this winter but only a couple were really special. One of them was 'JJ Jenny' but Sonia is looking for another one for me as we speak. Thank god for people like you, Sonia, and Mike, and all the others that I haven't mentioned. You all have made it much eaier for me to get some of these harder to find plants/tropicals. If you stumble across a nice sized Minneola or Washington Navel, PLEASE grab it for me and I will reimburse you. I just don't want to spend another arm and a leg having to order them. Ooh, and yes Laura, I am trying to persuade you to become a co citrus horder with me! What you will find cool about this hobby is that citrus can be easily propogated from cuttings! Mike is doing this all ready, and I will be asking him for some tips so I can get growing my very own cuttings. I did it years ago with Ponderosa lemon. I didn't have any trouble with rooting it but all my recent attemps at rooting have not been productive. Well take care everyone! I did check my delivery status for my Four Winds order. Right now it's in New Jersey so it should be here by tomorrow. Laura, I will be hiding the new arrivals for a while..LOL! I laughed my butt off when you mentioned how during the winter, the rooms are getting greener and greener, and fuller and fuller! Andrew

How wonderful!! A friend painted a picture of my old barn (at our other place) as a surprise for me. She even included two of the horses in it....which was a little funny because they were boarded horses, not mine, but it is a treasure and I so appreciate it.

Thanks, everyone. Luvs, I haven't been painting--mostly because I've been in the garden. I said I wasn't going to do as much gardening this year . . . boy, was that a misstatement! So far I've planted five new roses, 14 perennials, a few annuals, and a bunch of vegetables. Plus I have 15 new irises on order. Then this weekI had surgery (real, operating-room, anesthesia surgery) to remove a piece of rose thorn from my hand. It had caused quite a problem. Actually, the surgeon removed two thorn pieces because in between seeing him and having the surgery I managed to get another one stuck in my hand. Most people (including me until recently) don't know that roses can be dangerous. So no painting for me for a while. It's all I can do to type! But I will certainly drop in here often, painting or not. Thanks for asking. Oh, and another reason why the painting has been on hold is that I started rug hooking again after a lapse of 11 years. I found this table mat I started in 1997, and vowed to finish it. I'm almost done. It depicts the seven cats we had at the time. One one, Princeton, is still with us. The round metal things are thumbtacks, BTW.

Came here from your other post about window treatments. I can see why they used the dining room for the LR. That light is wonderful! If you use your dining room less than the LR, I'd swap them too, Then the stage makes more sense, "Ta da! Dinner is served." Really tho, it's not that bad. If the entry hall were wood like the rest of the house, it probably wouldn't stand out so much. Maybe. 😊