I don't know about the loddigesii, but here in zone 6 in New Jersey I grow all my catts (LC, BLC, Potinara, Otaara, etc) in a warm southeast window right up against the glass with no curtain. I find that summering outdoors is a big help to them, and sustains them through the dull winter. I do cut back on the fertilizer from around Oct. 1 to Feb. 1 as they grow more slowly, but I don't eliminate it completely, and I let them dry out between waterings. Believe it or not, I get blooms in the winter. The phals are in the same window behind them. The cool southwest window I save for the nobile dens, as they don't mind being cold.

Now Barb you are going to make me go in the garage and dig out the girl scout books ha ha ha so I can continue that tune lol But my hole body hurts so I will rest now and just lay down and watch TV after I am done with the dishes. I shoveled 2 yards of compost out of the bed of the truck into the flowerbeds in the front yard. Still got 1 1/2 beds left to do in the front. After it was empty I rushed back to the city composting place and picked up another full truckload. Starting on the one flowerbed next to the garage. I wanted to plant some plants in there yesterday and I KNEW I had to improve the soil first. I was supprised that the EE's grew as good as they did in that soil. So I CU all tomorrow Lucy

I have an Abies pinsapo (ungrafted) that has been in the ground for about 10 years. It endures summer heat with high temps 100 - 110f for several months each season and shows no ill effects, never burns and the buds don't dry, looks great all year round. Does take more heat than my other conifers to flush (it is later) It does not look like those seedlings though, much more spruce like with thick short dark green needles radiating out all around. I got it as a 1' seedling and foliage was always as it is now, but was never in the shade, always full afternoon sun.

Hi Reds: 1. they were approx. 3 feet tall in this picture, and I think they reached this height at least 2 weeks earlier than in the past (when I did more potting-ups/potting ups to smaller than 10-inch pots). Actually when I did potting ups in the past it was usually one plant per 4 inch pot, but I had to sometimes put two plants in a 6 or 7 inch pot, and always found that the larger the pot, the faster the plant grew. 2. There were flowers forming on most plants but I did take off the majority of them. One definitely had small tomatoes on it before I even took the plants outside at the end of May (but once this was out these did not grow or mature properly, next time I think I would pull them off). 3. Answer to 3 has an asterisk, because weather was unbelievably horrible in June 2009. I think we actually had frost or snow in the first week of June (last frost date normally May 24). Plants were outsite in a covered enclosure from last week of May until the end of the first week of June, after which they went in the ground (at one point I lugged all 51 plants back inside when the threat of frost/snow came). A few plants had flowers that pollenized prior/soon after to planting. After that however, the nights were so cool that just about ALL flowers fell off for a period of about 3 weeks. The only ones with fruits that were actually growing were the ones that pollenized before/soon after planting, so I had a few plants with growing tomatoes and the rest with nothing. These early ones were very slow to ripen, and did not taste good. Around the end of June the plants exploded in flowers (presumably reacting to the lack of prior pollenization) after which we had a week of perfect weather...massive pollenization happened at that time, leading to huge production, but just about everything was very late maturing. I will try to remember to take note of time to first ripe fruits for each variety this year. I wanted to seed directly in my 10-inch pots, but with 50 of them I knew it would be very difficult to (a) keep them at the proper level of moistness and best temp to encourage germination, and (b) once they germinated, the height of the pot would likely prevent any direct sunlight hitting the plants (all my plants get sun from windows, I figured they would be too shaded to grow properly with direct sowing into large pots). I hope you try it, I would be interested to hear your results. Actually if you are still using mostly 4 inch for first transplant, why not pick some varieties for which you have multiple seedling and put some into 4 inch and some straight into 7 inch and see if you experience faster growth in th 7 inch.