I love succulents too! Help me learn to post, please My regualr email is graceygirl777@gmail.com Can someone help me learn to start a post? I need help rooting my Jade leaves? I'm having some success with rooting hormone but still unsure if i might be using too much soil. I actually stopped using soil accept to lightly cover the ends and have success, I have about 40 leaves I'm trying to root, I have branches too. I've rooted the branches in water but that seems like cheating so I'm sticking to the rooting ormone and soil. I haven't developed a full proof technique. sorry for cutting in on you, I've been lurking for a month and can't get the hang of things here. I really do love your succulent, and have very small ones similar. Exciting!

You normally do not need to prune hydrangeas, valtorrez, especially if your plants are that small. Instead of worrying about pruning, check some of the other things that could be causing few blooms (other than the plant size itself). Add about 1 cup of cottonseed meal in June and sprinkle coffee grounds or weak fertilizers like liquid seaweed during the growing season. Make sure that the plants get some sun. Generally speaking, the more sun a plant gets, the better flower production is. And maintain the soil constantly moist as best as you can. If a finger inserted to a depth of 4" feels almost dry or dry then water. About 1 gallon of water per week, applied to the soil, should be enough in Spring. Increase the frequency or the amount as summer approaches or as the plant gets bigger. And reduce the amount of water in the Fall. When the soil is frozen in Winter, do not water. But water somewhat during warm dry winters. About 3-4" of mulch should help keep the soil moist longer. A soil test done once every 5 years (or so) is a good idea to make sure that your soil does not need extra doses of some minerals or soil pH amendments. Cheap kits are sold to give you an idea of how acidic or alkaline your soil is. Hydrangeas prefer acidic soil and will tolerate some alkalinity. Nearby local nurseries and neighbors might be able to tell you if your soil is acidic or alkaline. Height is a genetic trait and varies depending on the variety of hydrangea that you have. Pictures of the blooms, leaves and stems are the usual ways of telling what hydrangea variety you have but, even then, some varieties are so similar that, it may not be possible to identify with 100% accuracy. Please post any pictures that you have to see if anyone can help. Colored (blue/pink) blooms suggest that you probably have hydrangea macrophyllas, which come in two flavors: mopheads and lacecaps. Their flower buds develop starting in July-ish. Some macrophyllas develop blooms only once a year, around July, while others -like Endless Summer- develop blooms around July and again in Spring (or Spring & Summer). When you do not know what variety of hydrangea macrophylla you have, you must prune carefully. If you prune NOW a mophead that blooms only once, you would be pruning away the Spring 2010 blooms. And you would not have blooms again until Spring 2011. So until you can identify the variety, if you have to prune, prune sometime after blooming but before the start of July. In the case of a hydrangea like Endless Summer, pruning them now in March results in no early Spring blooms; but new ones will develop quickly so there is no risk of zero blooms during the complete growing season. Deadheading will encourage the plant to bloom again. Last year's dried out blooms may start to disintegrate between now and May. The strings that hold them may now be brittle enough where they break just by applying a little pressure. If not, deadhead them or wait a month & try again...... I usually just let them fall to the ground on their own. When you have time, go to the link below to read all about pruning all types of hydrangeas, fertilizing, etc. Luis Here is a link that might be useful: Pruning Information

If you have any iris left I'd love to come get some.

You'll need to find a larger size of perlite (not rocks). I buy size 2 at the organic gardening/hydroponic store here in town. The size two seems big at first but breaks into smaller pieces very easily (dont break it apart on purpose though, you want it in bigger pieces.) Be sure to sift and rinse it, otherwise the dust on it can gather at the bottom of your pot and create a swamp that stays soggy, like sand does. I would like to warn you against purchasing the Miracle Grow brand of perlite. It's like they used all the good pieces and bagged up all the fines to pass off as perlite. It just turns into a mushy, soggy mess unless you sift it and then you can only use ~1/8 of the bag as the rest are fine particles and unusable. Total rip off. As Russ said, you'll need at least 50% of the mix to be perlite (you can use perlite mixed with chicken grit [crushed granite] to make up this half of the mix but the grit can get very heavy if it's a large container) combined with 50% or less of the cacti and succulent mix you buy, if it's based on peat (sphagnum peat or coco peat, which is what most people think of when they think of potting soil, very small organic materials). Little jab: and I thought my pictures were bad! If you're using a phone, you should be able to click on the item you want it to focus on and it'll focus for you.