I have emailed them 2x. I have a huge order . They answered my first email and said they ship to this part of the country beginning 9/18 . That was back a couple weeks ago. Then I e-mailed 2 days ago and asked if they would please make sure they were not in transit for so long that I had to fear for the plants. I have not heard anything back. I have my fingers crossed. I hope they don't get "mad" at me for my obsessive concern. After reading here about how tenuous some of the plants seemed I got worried. I always use root stimulator on the plants and have had great success so far. I of course only have 2 years experience with clems. I am XXX my fingers. Caroline

I'm surprised that they sent yours so late. Mine arrived the day after Labor Day. Some had enough roots in the pots to not even question their ability to survive being directly planted. A few had roots that were more iffy. I dumped these in gallon pots using the same porttng mix they were shipped in. Now most of these have roots coming out of the bottom of the pot and I feel OK about putting them right into the ground. But there are still a few that really haven't developed that much more root, so these will be planted in their pots, with a topping of my usual clem mix. I doubt that you would have a month left to make these decisions though, so unless you are at the Southernmost part of zone 5, I would suggest that you just pot them up to a gallon size pot, plant the pot, and check again in the Spring. That is if the roots are not already filling the container they came in. Marie

I've given up on vermiculite. The so-called "coarse" stuff these days is always medium grade, whenever I come across it. I use bark mulch instead. If you can get it graded and delivered, that's probably your best bet, but I've had to use the bagged stuff from Home Despot - not the dyed stuff, this is Mountain Magic Premium grind. There is a good bit of wood chips in there but it hasn't caused a problem. If you have the space, aging it for a few months before use is a good idea for any bark mulch you are going to use for raised beds or potting soil. I live in a desert, there isn't a lot of choice for mulch here.

I have called ancestry many times and most of the time, its a reasonable wait and they are always helpful. My brick wall goes back to a John Boston - 1737-1810. He was a Major in the Revolutionary War in the Onslow Militia in NC. I was trying to make a connection to the infamous Henry Boston from the Eastern Shore of MD/VA in the 1640's. There is a hugh book written on his family and descendants. I even tracked one of them down and my husband and he did Y chromosome tests. No connection at all! And there is no connection to the other Boston lines on the Surname Projects done through Familytree DNA. We found a 4th cousin who goes back to the son of John, named James, as my husband does, and he agreed to be tested so we could determine if the line from there is solid and it is. Their results were a very good match. Turns out that there are a number of men with the surname of Burns, Byrne and Byrnes that are closer matches than any Bostons. And there are a couple with the surname of O'Neill and Reed or Reid that are even closer. All of these lines can be traced back to an area of Ireland called Leinster. Well, that's a surprise cause we thought the ancestors came from England or Scotland! So somewhere back either at John's generation or further back, we think a Boston male took in children sired by a man with one of those surnames. That wasn't uncommon at the time since women often lost husband's and men would marry women with children already. The issue here is that they took the Boston name and so now husband's family are Boston by name but not by blood - or at least not by any Boston line that has been documented. Those lines that have been are close to the area where John was, certainly within the realm of possibility for the scenario I proposed. We know that the line is good from James down as we have autosomal testing for cousins and they show up throughout the family tree. But through all this searching, I have located several descendants from the children of James 1767-1837. I have also found hand written documents where James wrote about each of his children, including hubs GGGF, who was given up at 10 days old to another family to raise (Kings) since his mother died. James wrote so lovingly about his wife and children. It was like my meeting him in person. I have so many questions I would love to ask him!