As long as the drain hole doesn't sit in a puddle, there's no need to elevate. If it's on soil or bark, all should be well. The container will actually drain better if the soil in the container is continuous through the drain hole & is in contact with the soil beneath. In this arrangement, the earth acts as a giant wick and pulls excess water from the container soil. Al

Thank you again Christopher! I've seen that plate, Tomorrow will be Friday on ebay. It was cute and I was tempted to bid, but it is really not my area of collecting. On the plate the monk was fishing in a pond for I suspect Catholics' meatless/fish Friday. It was signed, great condition, and I think it was won quite inexpensively. This and the figurines (many "Jovial Monks") have been about the closest I've come to similar items - as well as some good info on Charles Noke a previous poster led me to. I will see if I can order from the tiny library in my town a current Kovals book, and keep up my searching on Internet (hah - also am always tempted to misspell Doulton, so may have missed some info because of that). 20s to 40s era does fit into the time the previous owner lived in Scotland, and who collected just these 2 Doulton pieces, also a huge amount of that blue and white Wedgwood, and many, many of those frilly figurines of women and some men in fancy dress that I gave to relatives. Forget who made them, but they looked well made. No, I didn't know Royal Doulton is now owned by Wedgwood. A good lead - thanks - as I expect they could have Royal Doulton records now. Thank you, Suesan

Paint color most often looks different when you get it on the wall because the lighting in the room affects the color and so does the undertone, the underlying color your eye reads which is impossible to see on a small swatch. Why some grays look blue, others yellow etc. Also, the walls are vertical and that's seen differently than what you're holding in your hand with light overhead. Amount of natural vs artificial light in a room can affect color too as does the color temperature of the bulbs. What I did was paint 24 x 36 poster board samples and tape them up. That's a good way to see how the color will look in the room and you won't get confused with too many colors on a wall. F&B paint has so many colors in the mix some of them change completely through the day. It's not easy paint to work with until you get to know it. The free color card isn't accurate but the fandeck is and they have sample pots ($6) best of all. Paint brands vary as the color of the base varies in whiteness and the colors also vary with how many different pigments are mixed in to get the color. Most paint brands mix 3-4 pigments. Some of the full spectrum (no black) paints have many more than that and the highest end of those -- super premium brands like Donald Kaufman and F&B can have as many as 12-16. The biggest difference with F&B is that it isn't mixed at the paint store. They are one of the few brands that mixes their own colors in their factory. Some color consultants paint more than one of those big samples, tape them together and actually put them up as mini-murals to see how the color looks. Also some tape samples to ceiling if a color is used there.

if bloom is running late.. you have to try to look back.. and try to remember if spring was long.. and cool .. or some such .. not unlike growing from seed .. the plant probably needs X number of days.. from break of dormancy [or with seed, from germination] .. to achieve bloom .. so if spring is long and cold.. the whole process could be slowed ... but then .. flower is probably also triggered by the height of the sun [though this would be minimal in a fall flowering case ... it might even be declination of the sun???] ... and other variables ..... my point is.. there are many variables to consider ... ergo ... moving them around.. might not help at all ... unless its to a spot which is somehow warmer in spring ... ken