i love my nepenthes jamban which is pretty sought oot also there in nepenthes hamata... and sarracenia northwest has both jamban and a hamata hybrid I always reccomend ordering from them... plus there poi dog nepenthes are on sale. they are unknown hybrids but beautiful anyways. i would love to have darlingtonia but they are so hard to grow. ive seen them in the wild. my dewy pine is amazing and that you have to remember is almost a desert plant. sarracenia northwest has care sheets and amazing dvd's for everything. the only pland i've ordered from them that died was a cephalotus because they are hard but check them out.

Here is one I didn't know about. Looks like they LOVE the high summer rainfall, and deep sandy soils of southeastern Virginia! The best Cryptomeria I've ever seen on the east coast (probably, anywhere! I've never been to JP or CN) was somewhere in Norfolk but I doubt I could ever find it again. http://bigtree.cnre.vt.edu/detail.cfm?AutofieldforPrimaryKey=660 Time for those folks to install a lightning arrester for that tree! Or make sure the church spire is well grounded so that it diverts the charge LOL.

I like the tame ones just fine, but I like the "wild" taste of Dewberries better. When I went to California to see my brothers and sister, we stayed with my older brother at his house way up in the mountains. We went on an explore all over the mountains. We found acres and acres of blackberries under the tall sugar cone pines and decided to brave the black bears to get some of the big blackberries. They were so thick on the bushes that they weighted the bushes down from the weight. It was kind of dark back in there and creepy. My children were toddlers, so I kept them close to me. The berries were covered in a rust colored dust from the ground - years of rotting pine needles. As we walked, it would poof up into the air. Very dusty. We got coated in the dust as we waded through the thickets for the big juicy berries. The berries were also coated with this dust - we ate them anyway. They were scrumptious. Very sweet and melted in your mouth. My children were streaked with purple juice, even their blonde hair had purple streaks. We ate them as we picked - two for the bucket, one for my mouth; three in the bucket, one in my mouth. I rather liked the piney taste myself. Yum Yum! :) We saw no bears, lucky for us, but there were signs they had been there. When we got back to my brother's cabin, I rinsed them and baked pies. We feasted that night and ate those pies. I wish I could have brought gallons of them home in the form of jam, but he didn't have the equipment for making jam. Best blackberries I ever et! Now I compost pine needles and add them around my blackberry vines to add that taste to mine. They love the acidity and I love the flavor. ~Annie

The roots go a lot further down than an inch, and it doesn't look like that pop bottle has any drainage holes. I still suspect they are too wet most of the time, and probably are not getting enough sun as another poster noted. Lavender is originally from the Mediterranean region, along the coast. Yes, they manage to grow a lot of lavender in England - it is still a Mediterranean plant, however, that grows best in dry, chalky, poor soils. I think the Brits just tend to be better gardeners on average than the average 'merican, LOL! Plus they have lots of chalky coastline ... think the White Cliffs of Dover ... Lavender does NOT do well in soil that is moist all the time. If they are doing "better" since you started daily watering, I shudder to think how they were doing before, because those plants are not doing anything like "well", especially given that you started those plants way back in the spring. Here's a picture of a potted lavender that is doing well: Potted lavender advice Lavender needs 8 hours of sun a day, at least. Full sun in the garden is what they are talking about there. I don't think your plants are getting near that on your balcony. It will only be worse sitting near the window there in your kitchen (or where ever you plan to put them over winter). I understand that you are in an apartment and have VERY limited access to light and space for growing plants. Lavender is a very challenging plant (so is rosemary) for growing indoors. I've never had any luck growing either plant indoors myself. I'm not saying it can't be done; but it is a challenge. Your setup is not adequate to the task at this time. You're not getting nearly enough light; the soil mix in your pop bottles looks too heavy (lavender does better in a soil-less mix, in fact I think potted lavender may be a prime candidate for some version of Al's gritty mix). There are no drainage holes that I can see in that pop bottle and you are overwatering if the soil is never allowed to dry out. Lavender also like an alkaline soil. Adding some lime could help. ESPECIALLY if there is any peat moss at all in your soil mix, or if you are using pine fines as mulch or a soil amendment. So - alkaline soil, allow the soil to dry between waterings - not totally since these are first year plants but it shouldn't be wet or even damp all the time; and it loves the heat but dislikes humidity (hence it does pretty durn well in our dry near-desert conditions in N. Nevada). However at this point in time I hold out little hope for the survival of your plants over the winter, given their stunted condition now. I'm not trying to be discouraging; go ahead and try, you've come this far with them. But you need to repot them in a soil-less mix more suited to the plant and be prepared to supply extra heat and light, else they will not survive. Here is a discussion and fairly clear description of how to make Al's gritty mix. Personally I have found ALL the ingredients difficult to impossible to find. Turface, in particular, I have never been able to lay hands on - and though it is the virtually same stuff as certain types of cat litter or adsorbent, it isn't ALWAYS the same stuff. For instance, Napa Floor Dry has been touted as a replacement - but there are TWO KINDS and only one of them is suitable for this purpose. And I'm too tired to go dig up the links that tell you which is which. Also, having to screen and discard large portions of your ingredient isn't exactly lending itself to being affordable - let alone easy. That said - for this particular instance, I think gritty mix is your best bet - if you can only find the ingredients and get them properly screened and mixed.