This ties into the whole site design vs. piece meal design practices. Parts is parts. Pieces parts. (old commercial, I forgot what for - chicken McLugnuts or something). Here again, if you follow the "start with a plant list" mentality you'll wind up with one thing. If you plan uses, then the ideal relationship between those uses, then analyze the site, then adjust that ideal to the realities of the site, you'll be on the way to something that really works. That is a process. The question then becomes "who can think that way?". It is designing by reasoning, not by feeling. That is not to say that you have to be insensitive, but that you need to balance you gut feeling with observation and knowledge. Many of us come from garden designing and building and have added more and more to our repetoire (sp?). Now, do we treat these things like objects to be arranged in a garden or have we gotten to the point where we are planning uses and requirements around other uses? Everyone believes the latter, but as we go around we see enough blindness in this regard that it has to be a fact that it is not so easy. How do we get from arranging outdoor things such as plants, pergolas, pools, ponds, walkways, driveways, spas, flower pots, or whatever, to be good at planning and programming? Is it trial and error? Is it following a technical process? Do we get from following a technical process to be more automatic about it? This is a heavy subject about a light hearted hippie hot tub. Wow, man. How do you (generic you) react when someone says "I want a hot tub right here?". Is it "yes, I can make that work, or do you process the whole idea of where the right place for this should be? I recently did a job for people who designed their house around a Japanese Maple. It is beautiful. It did cause the alignment of the garage to make it difficult to not hit a guest house as you back out. They could have designed the house to fit the site and paid $1,500 to move the tree to work with the house. That kind of thing makes me crazy. But, we see it all of the time, don't we?

Hi HS, My guess as to why the plants got leggy in the first place is because they simply were not getting enough light; they had to reach for more light. Most folks leave their fluorescent lights on at least 16 hours a day and probably more often 18 hours a day. The distance of the lights (3 to 4 inches above the seedlings) was probably okay, but a little closer (2 to 3 inches) may have been better. I just don't think 12 hours of light was enough. Regarding your thoughts about trying to "simulate the same daylight they will get when moved outdoors in April", you really can't compare artificial lighting to the amount of sunlight they'll get when you put them outside. When moved outside, it's true the amount of time they will receive light will be reduced (from say 18 hours to 12). However, the amount of light will be increased. The sun will supply more light in 12 hours than your lights can do in 18 hours. Blooming and fruiting, of course, will be influenced by whether the plants are short-day or long-day plants, but I'd leave that to the plants once they're outside. They know exactly what they're doing :-) My suggestion is to increase the length of time you leave your lights on. But whatever you end up doing, I wish you the best of luck with starting your seeds indoors for the first time. Sounds like you're off to a good start! Art

What source of light will these plants be receiving and from what direction will the light be coming? (i.e. North, South, East or West window?) If a north window is the only option, invest in a 4' fluorescent fixture to provide light. The haworthias and gasterias should get along quite well together, I would guess, since they come from fairly similar growing conditions. If growing in a window, how far from the window will this garden be? The distance and the exposure will pretty much determine what plants should be tried and whether the garden has a chance of success. I've grown haworthias and gasterias under fluorescent lights in my basement for 30+ years without a problem. Under fluorescent lights, there is never a cloudy day and the light is coming from directly above the plants so they grow very symmetrically. Growing the plants in a window will require turning the garden occasionally to keep the plants from growing toward and leaning into the light. If you're concerned about cultural conditions for individual plants, you could always keep the plants individually potted and sink the pots into sand or gravel to hide the pots from view. This would allow watering each plant individually and allow plants that like different watering regimes to be grown close together without affecting the neighboring plant. Individually potted plants will also allow plants that may not be doing well, or those plants that may have gone to the big greenhouse in the sky, to be be removed and replaced with a new plant fairly easily. Good luck! I hope you'll post a photo once you get this garden put together so we can see the results of your vision and the plants you decided to grow. Mike

Pay no attention to the (men & women ) behind the curtain. The great poncirusguy has spoken. SIZE DOES NOT MATER. It looks great. Grapefruit trees are know for their beauty and dark green leaves. Don't push it to grow now. Let it grow this summer. You are already getting what what you most want, incense and sentiment. When grapefruit is in season is sells for $0.40 / pound and when it is out of season your tree wont have any either. Check out the link below for people growing in containers to see what you might have to do to get fruit. Steve Here is a link that might be useful: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/citrus/msg081305578468.html