Our conditions in MI were prolly the same as yours, JaG. I had great container plantings right up 'til frost when the material was not too temperature sensitive, but noticed the same thing with my tomatoes & peppers - lots of late fruit that never ripened. I also use a lot of tropical perennials in the floral display containers, and they took a long time to take off this year. We had regular frosts 2 weeks beyond our last frost date, and (garden) soil temperatures remained well below 55* until after the first week of June. Sorry for the cross-talk, HBG. I hope I'm close enough to being on-topic. ;o) I had thought about the possibility of an N deficiency - especially if you were using fresh bark/small pieces, but that wouldn't explain why one plant did well & another didn't. Still, I would put genetics well down on the list of probable causes. Remember this for next year: "By habit now, I literally rip the bottom half of the roots off every plant I use in containers. I then remove a healthy additional portion of the soil they come in before transplanting or potting." For plantings with many different plants (mixed containers) I save the old soil and roots in a pile, and after the plants are situated as I like them in the container, I use it to pack around the remaining roots to secure the newly planted plants. It's usually a much more water retentive soil than what's below it and works well to help keep good amounts of moisture near the roots until the plants are established. It's an example of how being familiar with the rules of how water behaves in containers can allow you to break the rule (of not using dissimilar soils in the same container) and make it work to your advantage. ;o) It may make you shudder to think of it, but I nearly always remove all blooms & buds from the plants I am newly planting. It hastens establishment & allows the plant to build a strong root system quickly, which ends up paying dividends over the long haul. You may have to go bloomless for an extra week or so, but I've always found it to be well worth it in the end. Good luck!! Al

These two cacti are pretty sad. I have no idea what they are, how to trim them up, oe even if I should. I haven't been able to get pictures to work inline with the message, but these are links to them: http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g465/baithog/Yard/IMG_0288S.jpg http://i1103.photobucket.com/albums/g465/baithog/Yard/IMG_0289S.jpg

Son had a large wedding and reception but because it was in the afternoon, no dancing. But if we did have a song it would be Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me." His small high school graduating class sang that to the parents then they gave the mom's a rose. Talk about crying! DIL knows what a close knit family we are and she loves how close I am to my son's. Now that she's a mother of a son she really understands the special bond between son and mother which is not like the old saying goes, "A son is a son until he takes a wife, a daugther is a daughter for the rest of her life." Heck, I still get onto my children! I'll always remember Barbara Bush speaking about Jr., "Just because he's the President doesn't mean he can put his feet on my coffee table!" lol

I had a husband (yes HAD) who always made me be the bad guy to our children. He was Mr Fun. It's not a good way to live. I can't imagine your BF will change if the two of you have any children together. :(