Calvin, Mine's not growing yet, probably because I've changed the medium a couple of times. Currently, it's in 3/4 sphag & 1/4 bark mix in a 5" or 6" clay pot, double-potted w/ another clay pot w/ a layer of sphag between the two. Stones in the bottom of both pots. I switched to this last Sunday after an experienced grower here said his was growing nicely in 100% sphag. (The bark in mine doesn't make rational sense, okay? :)) Paul, hopefully, it's just a matter of getting conditions right... but that's the catch so far. Have you heard of things in our zones that didn't work? 3 resources - 1. On the UK forum, there's a thread on "Hab. myriotricha" that prompted me to take the plant out of the original tiny clay pot. Now I wish I'd retained the medium, which looked like pure sphag. Posters also have options for cultural conditions. http://www.ukorchidforum.com/ (Some use medusa & myriotricha interchangably; some say they're different species.) 2. Article from Orchid Review on Hab. medusa by William Cavestro that gives cultural conditions. 3. E-mail exchange with J&L. I wasn't clear about the size pot so now don't know if they've got theirs in the same tiny pots. And what's in their sphag mix? Ack. Maybe they'll answer a 2nd e-mail. From: CORDELIA HEAD To: _____________ Subject: Re: Habenaria medusa not growing Date: Sat, 31 May 2008 15:09:44 +0000 > Sounds okay, but You could have set it way back by repotting it when it was just starting to grow. Ours are all doing fine, but growing slowly in the moss mix we shipped yours in. Good luck J&L > _______ wrote: > Greetings, All, > > After falling out on the floor at the beauty of your Hab. medusa, I'm not doing well with mine. It hasn't grown beyond the original sprout. > > Can you advise? Mine's double potted in clay, w/ sphag between the pots - recommended by successful medusa growers on the UK forum so the roots don't get too hot in direct sun. (The growers were impressed that US folks could get the > medusa, by the way.) > > The medium is terrestrial orchid mix w/ about 20% bark mix layered in for drainage. Both mixes are from Orchids Limited. There's a layer of stones in the bottom of the pot for drainage. > > The plant is right next to the 5'x5' E/SE window and under T8s in intermediate conditions. Temps are low to mid-60s to high 70s. Humidity runs 40%-55%. > > Outside night temps often are in the mid- to low 40s(!), so nothing can go outside yet. > > Air circulation is moderate: the windows are usually open, and the open door to the smallish bedroom/orchid room is just across from the windows, plus an oscillating fan keeps air moving, although it's not blowing directly on the > orchids. > > The Hab. radiatas (sp?) are taking off, and they're in straight terrestrial orchid mix. > > Thanks for any clues you can pass along. > > ____________ > Zone 4 > Minneapolis, MN If I hear from J&L again, I'll post. Let me know how yours does. Whitecat8 Here is a link that might be useful: Hab. medusa article, Orchid Review

Aggie, Yeah, I know what you mean about the wasp problem. I have the same thing here and also spiders. I'm pretty sure if I'd leave the eggs and cats outside, almost none of them would make it. I think I will surpass my goal of raising 200 this year. I'm glad that you're finding a lot of eggs too. Maybe we can "pollute" PA with lots of Monarchs. :) About the three eggs on a leaf...I just found three again on a plant outside last evening (one of the ones I had outside in cups), and the eggs are placed so neatly in a triangular pattern. I just hope my daughter gets home before these eggs hatch so I can take a picture of them with her camera. I guess they won't hatch until Wednesday or Thursday since they were just laid yesterday (I just checked the plants the day before, so I know there were no eggs on that plant on Saturday, so I should be able to get a picture of them before they hatch. I didn't look for eggs last year, so I don't know if this same thing was happening last year or not. Maybe the Monarchs are laying lots of eggs because there are more predators around this year...I'm just guessing. I'm glad you didn't get stung by that wasp. My daughter was just stung about a week ago and of course, it didn't feel too good. I'm sorry that you lost your first eggs this year, but at least now you and I are taking them in. Now I'm wondering how many cats I lost last year because I didn't collect the eggs at all. I didn't feel confident enough to do that yet, but now I do, especially after I discovered that I think spiders had eaten some cats in my milkweed patch soon after they hatched. They aren't going to get any more if I can help it. Sherry, I wish I could get some GST's so I could find out how much easier they are to deal with than the Monarchs. :) I have rue planted but it's not real big. I have 14 plants in the ground and probably twice that many in small pots that I haven't decided where to put them yet. I want to make sure I have plenty for them for next year if they don't show up this year, so these should all be a pretty nice size by then. I will also be planting some gas plants, and maybe someday I'll buy a ptelea trifoliata. I'm even going to plant two different colors of gas plants (the flowers) in case they're fussy about the color. lol That's one butterfly that I really really want to get here. Another one I really want is the Common Buckeye, but neither the Verbena hasta seeds nor the Agalinus tenuifolia seeds came up (bought both off of ebay), so I don't have anything for them other than the plantain that's growing all over the yard. I planted snapdragons but if only go on the wild ones, then they won't go on these. I planted a few Paw Paw seeds for the Zebra Swallowtail, which is another one I really want to get here, but they are so slow growing! I planted them back in March and only one of them sprouted and has its first two leaves out. I have a feeling that I might have to also buy trees sometime, but I asked around the area and nobody sells that tree. I never even saw a PawPaw tree. I have parsley, dill, and rue planted for the BST's but I only got the male here one day about two weeks ago and haven't seen any since. I have a few Black Willow saplings growing for some others I'd like to get and Spicebushes for Spicebush Swallowtails. I really want to get to see that caterpillar...I think it's just the neatest looking cat with those "eyes"! I have the butterflies around here but don't know where they lay their eggs. It could be anywhere since we're surrounded by woods. We have small sassafrass trees growing along the edge of the woods and I've been checking them for cats but I found none. Oh, I saw my first American Lady here ever yesterday! There are loads of butterflies outside and it looked so nice. I hope it comes back tomorrow (it's raining today) so I can get a pic of it. Have fun on your trip even if it is for business. Sorry that you have to let the cats outside to fend for themselves, but if it's too much for hubby, I don't blame you for doing that. You already go above and beyond what 99.999% of the human population does, so you're allowed to "slack off". ;-) Randy, Thanks very much. I've been meaning to email you and tell you that the Willow trees I have are doing great! I will look forward so much to them hosting some butterflies that I want so much, i.e. Compton Tortoiseshell, Eastern Comman, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Mourning Cloak, Red-spotted Purple, and Viceroy. So far this year I've seen butterflies that I hadn't seen last year (my first year). RA's are here, Painted Ladies, and now an American Lady showed up yesterday. As I will have more of a variety of blooming plants here this year and following years, I'm anticipating seeing butterflies that I didn't see last year. I did the bulk of the planting this year but am also going to put a few more things in next year. Susan, Yeah, woo hoo is my exclamation for now. I just hope it doesn't turn into boo hoo if I run out of food for them. I seriously thought that 200 + plants was going to be enough, but now I'm starting to wonder since the female or females just keep dumping eggs here like crazy. I'm not complaining, but I'm kind of in shock that they would do this to me. I wouldn't be concerned if my plants would all be big plants, but I just started most of them this year, so a very large percentage of the plants are only 1-2 feet tall yet. I just hope that the ones in cups the caterpillars already ate will sprout out again so they can feed some more caterpillars. I must have 100 milkweeds just on the back porch, but most of them are in cups so aren't really more than 1-2 feet tall. I have been bringing most of the eggs and cats in on the computer stand so they cat eat in peace and grow until I'd see they were pretty big and would pupate soon, so then I'd put them into individual jars and feed them leaves for a day or two. I will still keep some in here, but now it's getting to the point where I can't do that for them all or I'd have to get rid of the printer and the monitor and still not have enough room for everyone. Ha. I pinned a lot of eggs onto plants on the back porch and hope that spiders don't find them. [Note: I'm not doing any more of the pinning because it's awkward for me and I ended up losing two eggs in the process.] The porch just isn't airtight or even close to it, so I know that spiders can crawl in there. At least I'm pretty sure the wasps and flies won't get in unless they come in when one of us is going in or out the door, but if I see one, it's a goner. I don't like any kind of flies, so it doesn't matter what kind comes in, it's dead. Anyway, I will raise these caterpillers I have right now and they will pupate in jars, but I think the whole slew that I will have hatching from eggs this week will go into the big cage. Since none are in there at all yet and since these in eggs will all be pretty much the same size, I don't foresee a problem. I guess any eggs I find right after that will have to be brought in the house or the back porch because I wouldn't want to put those in with the big guys. Maybe after the ones in the cage pupate it would be okay to start putting some in there. Do caterpillars get after pupas? If they do, then I don't know what to do because I only have so many places to go with all of these eggs and cats. No doubt about it, this is a fulltime job. It's good I'm not working or I'd have to call in sick everyday. :) Thanks for sharing in my happines. I was hoping to get other kinds of cats to raise, but I think I'm about as happy as I can stand right now. lol Cathy

Bout time I got off my lazy can and chimed in on this. I know EXACTLY how excited you are to see this handsome bird at last. I fist saw a pileated here about 8 or 9 years ago. Oddly enough, our truck had developed problems and my husband and I were pulled over out in the middle of nowhere with the hood up trying to get it running again. I was standing back out of the way and wishing I was elsewhere when I saw it...a pileated woodpecker flying over. I'd only seen them in books but it was like a kick in the gut and I started dancing around , pointing and screaming. Of course, when your husband is stretched out across a greasy hot engine block in his good jeans, trying to coax that P.O.S. into getting us back on the road, he isn't really in the mood to get all goofy about a woodpecker, especially, as he stated later when I was grumpy that he wouldn't look, since IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN A PILEATED. And then about three years later I saw the first one here in our own woods. I doubted it even then, and ran the whole 1/2 mile back to the house through the nettle and mosquitoes to get my binocs. I could never get close enough for a good look but I was sure of it....we had pileateds. And I got the same response from my husband: Don't be silly. I soon got used to hearing their loud ringing ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke, but he wasn't impressed. Then one morning we were eating breakfast and watching out the window as usual and he about choked on his frosted flakes. There was a big flash of black and white and there it was, about 20 yards out on the side of a large oak. There was total chaos for a moment as we tried to locate the d--mn binocs (spot a new bird and see if your field glasses don't vaporize)and then I was doubted no longer. I bet you just about gave everybody a coronary when they heard you start hollering. I am wondering how inthe world it held still long enough for you to go fetch the camera and get a good shot. Would never have happened for me. And by the way, I did like everybody else, searching high and low through that HUGE picture, dying to see what was in there. At first I was scratching my head because it appeared to me that there was a bobcat-shaped creature casually sitting among your chickens, which didn't really make sense. Then I saw it. Congrats congrats congrats!!!! I bet it is looking for grubs and carpenter ants among the trees damaged by the ice storm you got two winters back.

1Kgrace345, I kept going back and forth pondering over getting a Presto canner or the All American...I really could have gotten the Presto many years earlier, but I wanted to save my money and just wait. I have two mirro canners that I have had since I was married in 1970 that my grandmother gave to me that she used and they were literally falling apart. The handles were gone, and they no longer had handles to replace them, so I was having to lift the pot by the hot metal...last year I burned my hand really bad...but I kept on canning. I just bought those new gloves made out of well, what ever that is...my brain just backfired...I hate when that happens...darn it. My husband (behind my back) took them both to the dump...that made me really MAD because they were my grandmothers, and I would have like to have kept them for old times sake, anyways. But, he bought me this new one today..and I just about had a flying flip when he said we were going to town to get one...I got ready faster than lighting! I understand how you would still feel like you were a proud parent of your All American, lkgrace!! LOL If my husband wasn't looking at me on the way home I would have petted mine...LOL!!!