MauveGirl8 -- I plan to stay here for a few years. I haven't even yet applied to school, and the program I'm intending to complete is 5-6 years. My next move will be way south -- Florida. As such, there are a lot of things I have that won't work there, so I wouldn't take them with me. And in any case, I'm not going to dig anything out. If I want to "bring any with me" it will be via rooted cuttings. And before I go, I intend to share some other rooted cuttings with friends -- and my landlord. He and his wife will be building a new home on empty land in the near future, and I said I'd be happy to share anything he'd like for his new yard. Certainly I'll be bringing along my "pot pet collection", and cuttings of anything appropriate for Florida that I got from Vintage Gardens that isn't available elsewhere. And by that time, I'll also make an announcement here for anyone interested in "hard to find" things I nabbed for this garden. For example, the Hybrid China 'Nouveau Monde' from VG doesn't seem to be available anywhere else. I'm using it as a climber against a raised back deck railing. The few flowers it had when it arrived were very fragrant. I posted two pics of it on HelpMeFind from when I first repotted it. Since then, it has grown quite vigorously -- one cane trained horizontally against the railing is easily 10' long from the ground. :-) ~Christopher

I just happened on to this old post and in hopes that someone might still be interested in "what makes a mini a mini". Here is what was explained to me many years ago by Ralph Moore himself, " the classification for a mini rose is determined by the size of the foliage not the size of the plant". Blue Mist has very small foliage but the plant itself will get more than 5 feet tall in our central California climate, the same goes for Sweet Chariot. For those living in colder climates you will find that the winters will keep the growth in check. I have several micro mini's that are 6 to 7 feet tall and still growing but the leaves are still micro mini in size. I hope this is helpful to someone.

Thanks so much to all.. As far as the pics go.. I think Im going to try picasa.. Ive done everything w/ PB aside from physically going there to deliver the prints! lol Josh, Yea.. its the bigg'n.. its been a while since Ive been on so I will update you. sorry, wish I had pics. I had gone out and gotten a nice (open bottom) stand for it. The liner that came in it was supposed to have drainage holes. Im guessing a factory screw up, or missed inspection didnt see that the holes were covered in a thin layer of plastic. So needless to say when I did water it (four to five weeks ago now) all that water just sat in the clear liner. I never noticed because I normally just let him do his thing.. When I noticed the first branch rot, Id posted this thread.. two days later.. saw the water. Then tried to just fluff up the soil, removed the liner, and put a little space heater in the room just to try to dry out the room. A few days later..another branch.. This is when I decided to make a new mix, and check for root rot. I really didnt want to but the soil was just NOT drying out. Three days ago I removed the tree, let it dry out overnight, put the new mix in (basically the same as what you told me), and the next morning checked the roots.. Thank goodness, NO ROOT DAMAGE! So he is now back in his pot..nice, dry, sunny and doing very well. One thing I was pleased seeing.. When I repotted back in December, the poor thing had practically no roots.. just a stump.. when I checked the other day, there are roots sprawling out every direction a good 5 inches!! Thanks everyone!! Christina (and of course "Big Guy"..lol)

Larry, I love the photo. Our deer aren't as thin as yours, but they were that thin, or even worse, last year. Yesterday when Tim came home from getting a haircut he came in with a bag of deer corn and we put some out for the deer this morning. I put the deer corn right by the back compost pile near the deer trail and the deer were there eating it 10 minutes later. It was the same herd that I described in the first post on this thread. They didn't come until about 7:45 a.m. Something is scaring the deer and rabbits because they are becoming very scarce in the evenings, and don't come out in the mornings until well after sunrise. This is a change in their pattern that has occurred within the last week. Yellow Cat, who was a feral cat for a decade before he settled into our place, adopted us and retired from being wild and self-sufficient won't even leave my side right now, and would stay inside the house 24/7 now if I'd let him. When he starts hiding out inside like that, or sticking to me like glue outdoors, that's another sign the predators are getting too close to the house. I haven't seen any or heard any, but we had a coyote hanging around a couple of months ago. Likely it is a coyote that's scaring them. Susan, I've never seen native passionvine on our land nor have I ever seen it anywhere in Love County. It might grow down in the wild river bottom areas, but we've been down there on fires and on drowning searches/recoveries and I've never seen it there either. Remember that we're more of a grassland than woodland type ecoregion, although there are some stretches of woods along the river and along creekbanks. I wish we had native passionvine here. We do always have gulf frits, though, so there's got to be passionvine someplace. My guess would be it is more in the eastern part of our county because the soils there are better and there's more woodlands along the river. I've seen giant, black and spicebush swallowtails this summer, but not very many of any of them. Usually they are as thick as flies, so I really miss having the usual hordes of butterflies around. Carol, That sounds like a great way to shade your pepper plants. As hot and dry as y'all are there, I know they must really appreciate that shade. My peppers wilted a couple of days in June when rain hadn't fallen and we were over 100 degrees but haven't wilted since then. They do get shade from the pecan tree beginning between 2 and 3 p.m. and that seems to be helping keep them happier this year than they were last year. Dawn