Kevin are you ok? Any one of us would have taken them and probably paid you for them. Don't take your grouchiness out on the orchids. Easy! You are scaring us! All orchids are pretty much mass produced . We know you are the resident phal hater. ;-) The rehabs ranged from Phals to paphs to intergens. Phals are not space hogs. I have really grow to like them. A 17 bulb Deppi or a yard+ of Stanhopea popping growths from every side, that's a hog and pendulant bottom blooms are tough to juggle in an indoor set up. That isn't really my main complaint, space. Like Paul says, over time you develope a taste for specific forms and don't need everything. If I am not enjoying Sharry Baby, why light it? Let someone else enjoy it. I don't think asco's are really fun to grow in z-5. Love them but that's when I lived in z-10. The service is killing me. I feel like I can't leave for a week. Only Carolyn's curvofoilium is easy for me. The bigger ones are too time demanding to keep on track. I am going to begin to get it together. I think I am going to do as Carolyn says, 2 rounds. immediate release and then a 2nd release. Some will make me sad. They have been my buddies. But it's time. Thanks for all the input. Clara

Susan and Mary, Great news on your physocarpa. After reading your post, Susan, I have got to go out and bring in the pods left on the plant before tonight. It is cool and drizzly here this morning, a really gray day. I've got some seed I need to bag up to stratify. Keep looking for variegata seeds, and there just isn't any. The last two plants are in pots in the ground, but I read that the gophers will actually come up above the ground and eat something they like. I will be putting in half inch hardware cloth under the plants and around them this winter so to make a bed to protect them. Purchased Castor Bean seeds, and have treated the soil with castor oil. This has kept the gophers out of the tuberosa so far. Mary, like you, I love the tuberosa. I especially love the "Hello Yellow". The leaves are heartier than the orange. I find eggs on the plants in the spring. It seems I am finding lots to do this season. I have collected seeds from different plants and have been trading and sharing them. It was a good season for plants to put on seeds. I also am cleaning out seed pods from the Passiflora incarnata--they are everywhere. Looking at a new portable greenhouse called a "Convertible greenhouse". It works like a car convertible, and looks like something I could handle and store. Haven't taken the step to purchase it yet. That's the news here in BA. Saw butterflies last week in Austin, but didn't get to get out and chase them. Sandy

Using water crystals for starting the rooting process: This thread of this post is also posted in the main forum so if you read it there, don't trouble yourself to read it again. The cutting has been a branch, above ground, but now we need a part of it to (1/2 ?) transform to a substrate rooting system. Getting them this way before they shrivel up or turn to mush is the challenge, thus I suggest the crystals. Shrivelling up is one of 2 things that I'm aware of 1) lack of water at the root area for too long in warm weather or 2)incapable of transforming to a root system, as would be a too green cutting. Usually these are taken off the end of branches with no matured nubs). People don't necessarily know you can't root this kind of cutting, not reasonably easy enough, so don't assume they screwed you over, ask first next time. Booo on the mush....the dreaded mush. The value of the water crystals is multifold for us. Water crystals don't let chemicals caused from even the beginnings of rotting spread around the container which tends to choke out the oxygen, and creates a too toxic environment for roots to grow anywhere on the cutting. Using water instead of cyrstals? The lesson here is, change your water every couple of days with room temp mineral/spring water and check for mush before it turns brown. See Checking below. With crystals you don't change nothing, you check every couple of days out of curiousity, making sure they are getting their light and you give a sniff - it's not pleasant but you don't smell ammonia (rot) so of coarse you leave them in. The arguement being, the bigger roots there are to start in dirt = the less likely they are to fail. I had 3-4" roots on mine without mush but these are hardier brugs so don't be pushing it with yours - even an 1-2" is likely good enough. I stick mine right in a 2 litre pop bottle for the winter time - Should they get too big - old school is too big a plant for the pot is when the pot is 1/3 the heighth of the whole heighth but there are plants like figs that can get by with a whole lot less and brugs are similiar. I have a 6' plant in a 1' pot but it's not growing much taller...dwarfism/bonsai'd, so you call it. A couple of mine had some mush on one of their ends, I suspect from too much cold exposure(?) over winter while in the bags (sticking out a bit), they were also in a brown paper bag (closed by folding over the top) which I will have to post to clarify as I neglected to mention it, which also helps to keep the temps stabler. The rot didn't hurt the others because the rot stayed local - in the jelly crystals touching them. I simply cut off those end tips and reinserted the cuttings which grew fine (I did see roots coming in above the rotted area so I could of potted up at this time but I was experimenting and not planning to pot them ALL up). In about 2-3 weeks (could be sooner or later)you'll be knowing it's time to pot up. Some would pot up as soon as the white nubbies had shown the transformation to root level stalk. If any sign of mush is showing at this point, (see Checking below)remove the mush and pot up. In this case, you may still lose it, if they are still only nubbies and the tissue is already showing damage and you can't grow the roots in the crystals, minimizing the cuttings contact with moisture further by potting in soil is your last chance. Just keep moist and don't overdue the watering. If you have a water meter, put it in as deep as your roots are planted and take the reading from in that area. Pot up at the exact level that you rooted it at or a little deeper - don't confuse the plant. If those white nubbies on your cuttings aren't growing roots but your cutting is fine, keep them in longer. CHECKING THEM : Use your nose, if you smell something like ammonia, with clean hands, gently lift it out and run your finger down the cutting where it was in the water crystals - if any part is beginning to rot you will see it come off. If nothing slimes off put it back in. If the green outer layer, slides off you have mush, aka rot. If you don't have enough root growth showing, remove that end and reinsert in rinsed out crystals, or just somewhere else in the crystals where the rot did not touch. If you have a show of roots, you should pot up right away. How to rinse crystals is up in this post. If you use water (jelly) crystals, mix the water crystals in the soil to. Any questions? - Sandy

Dang.. I don't understand why the web address wouldn't work. Okay.. try this.. type in St.Martin Episcopal tablescapes in the taskbar of your computer and it should bring it up. I just tried it and it worked for me.If that still dosen't work,I'll try to figure out how to put a clickable link on here. I haven't got a photobucket account yet..guess I need to open one up ... lol. I'm not sure how long the ice cream salts will last.. I was just experimenting to see how it would look.. so far,they're holding together. You just can't have the branches dripping wet when you pour the salt on them..lol. I've also been thinking about taking some bags of the half marbles and smashing them up and seeing how they would work.I've got some bags of clear ones.. if it works,I bet they would look awesome done in different colors. Susan