Hi Lucky, Yes, I saw your explanation about the bugs. I don't have any experience, so I suggested you might want to see if your county where you live has an agricultural extension society and call them tomorrow. If the BBS are charging $10 per plant, then they must be very hard to get and rare in your area. For less money, perhaps consider ordering directly either from Optimara or from one of the specialty growers because you would possibly have a better chance of getting something less likely to have pests. The seed trays I got were under $10 each, and can be found for even less, I bought mine at a higher priced garden center. The long, narrow rectangular shape holds quite a lot, plus they are vented. I don't recall which thread where someone posted a photo of the exact same trays I got. Perhaps Diana remembers. Some people in my AV club also use clear plastic shoe boxes. The round cake boxes never worked for me, but that was before I joined the forum, so I did not open them to ventilate, so things rotted. Having trays where you can lift the domes off is easier, soil does not get tossed around as much, they are stable on the counter or floor. Diana, you wrote that you separated some suckers from new plants, that is a kindness to the plant! You wrote: I also took 2 suckers from it so I have 3 of them (why?). Joanne This post was edited by fortyseven on Sun, Apr 6, 14 at 21:18

Thanks folks, for the kind comments. I do love by birds and gardening. Kathi-MDGD..."Oriole" nectar is just hummingbird nectar (4 parts water, one part white sugar) served in a larger "Oriole" feeder. The way to prevent feeder dominance is to put out more feeders and spread them out as much as possible. Perhaps put one on the east side of the house and one on the north. Or put two or three feeders out but have several feet between them. The more feeders there are, the harder it is for a dominant oriole or hummer to claim them all. I rarely fill my feeders all the way, since I empty and replace the nectar two to three times a week. Sour or fermented sugar water will do more harm than good to the birds. So I normally fill them maybe 1/4 full. My oriole feeders are the older style with rubber plugs over the feeding ports. I remove the port plugs on at least two sides and the orioles, hummingbirds, finches, woodpeckers, and all the other birds can all drink the sugar water. If you have the larger nectar feeder, with larger ports, nearly all the feeder birds will drink it. Once the yellow jackets arrive, usually mid- to late-August here, I replace the port covers to slow down the YJs. The orioles and hummers can continue drinking. . A male oriole at the feeder. . Mr. and Mrs. House Finch at the oriole feeder. . A hummingbird at the oriole feeder . And the oriole feeder here in Larimore with an oriole. You can't prove it by these photos, LOL, but I normally only color the water in the early spring for the first filling. After that it's usually clear. It seem like every photo I had shows colored water. I'll have to fix that. I don't want to set a bad example. LOL

first.. BBStore .. order 10000 plants ... grower sends 10000 plants.. if he only has 9000 junes.. he throws in 1000 other hosta... contract complete.. neither really cares about us.. and proper names ... if we care.. we use hosta nurseries.. eh??? the pic above... the brown is sunscald ... those areas dries too much for whatever reason ... sun or cold ...its what they all complain about with FW .. spring dessication ... i dont see any hvx ... and i did not mean they wernet all junes.. i just pointed out.... how different they looked ... and my june fever is a much smaller plant ... leaf size i mean ... and more lanceolate .. lance shaped .... ken

Thank you. I will try to take pics, didn't think of that. I don't know the names (they are not marked) but the Hahniis look like: solid dark green, dark green & light green banded, dark & light green banded with yellow vertical border on the outside leaf edge, and dark green with yellow vertical border on the outside leaf edge. I also bagged a S. tri.'Moonshine' and S.tri.'Laurentii', and then the S. cylindrica 'African Spear' - it's a nice colony of them in the pot. Weird, I never looked twice at these plants - but I'm really enthused about them suddenly.