I love the pot chosen for that... whatever it is... something juicy looking that is not native to Maine. ;). I love skunks, too. I think they're an absolute marvel of adaptation. They're pretty active here all winter long (it gets COLD here) and they pretty mind their own business. They cruise around, looking for "leftovers", grubs, and they seem to coexist nicely with a variety of other species. So a "too nosey" dog/cat gets nailed every so often? the way I see it, they probably deserved it! But I like animals. LOL about VW buses. A good friend of mine had one, too. We nicknamed it the "hippie bus", it was one of those pop up rigs, too. It was fun to make a new screen thingy for it! Cindy, there's a lot of work surrounding a death, isn't there? My late aunt was a stickler for attention to detail and had EVERYTHING in order when she died... I have saved several of her notes to me and one of them says this: "It's not easy getting off this planet". Was she ever right! Apparently, Mum flipped out this morning. She assaulted people and threw things (!!) I've been told. She has been transferred to a geriatric unit at a hospital for "observation". I spoke with the admitting nurse and asked them to check her urine and her level of hydration. I told them about her urostomy and told them to contact their staff stoma nurse ASAP. I told them about her hearing aids (one is broken again!) and that they should have her entire hearing aid kit transferred with her... . I asked if I should go right down or let them handle it (worried that seeing might make her more upset). I gave them some advice on how to handle her and what topics of conversation will often change her focus. I KNEW this would happen; predicted it to my brother after the last meeting... to the DAY. I have NO confidence in any of the medical field, in fact I tend to regard most of them with disdain now; what a sad commentary on what I've encountered thusfar with respect to care for infirm elderly. Deanne, I hope Deb. is holding up well! I feel myself degenerating into "poor company" once more. :/ I struggled through the bolsters today, WILLING myself into the zen space sewing can provide me. I made several very foolish, "amateur" mistakes before settling into the zone. It wasn't a particularly good day, but by the end of tomorrow I'll closer to finishing 2 odious jobs and will be better prepared to focus on Mum's most recent crisis. Somehow painting "man" doors doesn't seem very appealing right now. :) I figure as soon as I find something soothing to occupy me the "social worker du jour" will call and want to discuss Mum...

An update: Having spoken to a couple of professional growers with extensive experience in aloe culture, I showed them pictures of my plants and was told that mine are indeed a.p., in spite of one plant showing an offset. Phew! In addition I believe it is possible to tell whether a young plant is a lefty or righty, as follows. (I'm told that if you hold your left hand over the center of the plant with thumb pointing straight down, cup your fingers a little, and if the spiral pattern matches the arc formed by your fingers, the plant is a leftie. A right hand spiral is defined by the same technique with the right hand and fingers.) Having defined that, if you look closely at the structure of a leaf on a mature plant, you should see that one edge of the leaf is a simple, sharp "V" shape, while the other edge of the leaf is a sort of flattened/"blunt" angle. A cross section of the leaf would show that the leaf has an outline defined by 4 angles, resembling a single-edged blade. If you are looking at a leaf on the nearest side of the plant, a "sharp" angle on the left edge of the leaf would indicate a right handed plant, as defined above, and vice versa. I think this differential can be observed on plants as small as 4" (~10cm) diameter. Anyway, this is a minor detail, but I enjoyed figuring it out, assuming I got it right. If my observations are wrong, let me know! I attached an article on a.p. culture that was very interesting--great pictures too! Thanks, --Rick in CT Here is a link that might be useful: aloe polyphylla culture and pictures.

Hi Jools, Those seeds I started 3 weeks ago are doing pretty well. I took 10 seeds, gave them (2) cycles of freeze/thaw, then chipped them as I described earlier. Of the 10 seeds, 2 germinated within 72 hours, and by day 10 there was a total of 7 germinated. Maybe the others were duds, or maybe they weren't chipped right. Who knows? In answer to your question, I use a gritty mix for the seedlings too, and planted the germinated seeds 1/4" deep, including extra perlite to cover the seeds to help retain moisture, in a terra cotta community pot. A total of 6 finally made it (pictured). I put a maximum of 5 seedlings in a pot. In a few days these will go individually into 4" pots, and after a couple weeks of recovery, I'll start acclimating them to outdoors. From here on, I'll overpot, just to save time. Community pot==> 4" pot==> 8" pot==> ?? When my larger seedlings (4" -- 8") first went outdoors, I was more than a little concerned bc all the plants developed tiny brownish freckles, which I thought was either fungal or bacterial, and I was all set to treat these when they spontaneously cleared up, with no damage to the leaves. So far, the temperature here has stayed below 85ðF, and I have each terra cotta pot sitting in a dish which serves as a water reservoir, with that whole setup sitting in a larger container to shade the clay pot from direct sun. Remember, if the roots hit 85ð, the plant is toast. So far, this setup creates evaporative cooling, and I'm pretty compulsive about checking the pot temps, especially on the warmer days. I don't have a good spot to plunge these in the ground. As long as there's water in the dish, the unglazed pot will provide root cooling, and the plant can have its full sun. If the local temperature ever gets too high though, I won't hesitate to put the plants in the basement for a few days. I hope this helps. These are methods that seem to work so far for me, but I'm still experimenting.... Rick in coastal Connecticut

Thanks for the input, rredbeard...I haven't gotten around to pulling it from its pot yet. I may do that this weekend. It seems to have perked up a tad in the last few weeks, perhaps due to the lovely weather (upper 60's/40ish lows) and more regular watering. I think it will still lose some outer leaves, but the center leaves have started to fatten up. I think I just stressed it with underwatering to "dry it out" when it wasn't breathing on the glass shelf. (To clarify--over winter, I put it in the south-facing glass slider door on the glass tiered shelves I bought for my phal orchids. It was sitting directly on the glass shelves with no airflow under the pot. This made watering less frequent, as I'd peek under the pot to see if there was still condensation underneath and just wet the medium around the plant a couple times a week, but I noticed in early spring that some white fungus was starting to form in that humid environment (!!!)...only on the bottom of the pot..and I propped a side of the pot up at an angle after cleaning the bottom. That's when I overdid the drying regimen before placing it outside...propped up on an angle.) I may add more potting soil or compost to the mix when I inspect the roots, but I think I will stick with the granite chips. After all, don't they grow in granite chips/dust in Lesotho? I always have grit (granite chips) on hand for the chickens and used it for aeration and drainage, although I probably went too heavy on the ratio to MG Cactus mix. And the pot isn't as bad as it looks. It is only glazed on the sides and it is a shallow, wide dish with a large drainage hole. The water drains almost immediately, but the chips absorb enough moisture to remain moist to the touch for a couple days in warm temps. The light color should help in keeping the roots cool on warmer days, as well as the dappled shade that it receives from the deck railing and tree after noon. (Ok, ok...and I HATE terra cotta. I won't go there until I kill this one!) I'll keep you posted...I'm curious to see if the AP dug new roots into the granite mix or not. if it's contained within the peaty original mix around the rootball, I guess I'll have to consider a lighter mix like you suggest. Your most helpful tip was that it does not need a dormancy period. I won't worry about harm from lightly fertilizing at this time of year. I'll wait another week or two until it improves a little more and recovers from my inspection, and I generally give it a drink of the orchid fertilizer (distilled water/weekly/weakly). A handful of compost added to the mix should also serve as slow-release nutrients over the winter...I should have some nice aged compost left in the corners of the bin. Wish me luck!! Sunshine