Well, thank you all. Let me clarify the picture (I'd take another but I left the camer aon all night and am currently recharging the batteries) The flower stalk in the forground in the main. To the right is the dried up old one. The flower started out of an odd formation that I just thought was a 'node' (the next section of the stalk). The stalk in the background that you can see the tip of is actually a branching lower on the stalk. The stalk directly behing the base of the root is a continuation of the original. This new baby is almost like a leach to that stalk. The 'flower' is from the center of the new leaves. One about 1.5 " while the other is just emerging. I never actually thought about how orchids produced offspring. I guess I just got quite the visual education. So.........wait till the second root comes out to about 2" and a few more leaves before gently removing it. I think I will wait until the flower stalk that continues on has finished flowering out. By that time perhaps spring will have made some sort of appearance and they can go out to the greenhouse. That is if I don't accidentally break it off first!! Done that a few times on one of my orchids, not once but 4 times did I break a stalk in 1 1/2 years and the silly thing keeps rewarding me with another one. Thank God I don't know enough about them to........well ignorance is bliss. Right? Dana

i have a cannon 630A ... never use digital zoom ... useless for quality pix ... and i rarely use the other zoom ... you are better off.. taking the picture at the biggest size possible.. and then learning to edit it in your editing program.. to fill the whole frame ... by capturing enough pixels ... you will get much better quality pix ... and the after effect will be to zoom in .... however.. capturing the most pixels.. makes REALLY BIG pix files.. which can cause problems on an older computer ... if absolutely none of that makes any sense.. lol ... try the DCamera for dummies book ... thats where i started .. and.... watch out for the camera geeks.. they tend to not have any ability to discuss cameras in a manner that 99.9% of us can understand.. lol ... but they sure do try hard .... and the harder they try.. the less i understand ... lol .. you should start.. by defining EXACTLY what you want to do with it .... do you want to print out pix...??? then you need a certain level of pixels for crisp printed pix ... if you just want to play with them online ... you need much less ... personally ... i wouldnt pay more than $100 for your first camera.. and i wouldnt be surprised if you couldnt get a basic one for 25 to 50 bucks ... i would rather you spend a little.. to learn what you need.. before you invest in a rolls royce that you will never understand ... my first camera .. was a 67$ aldi special ... and did just fine for 3 years.. until i learned enough to understand that i needed more ... good luck ken

I am so lucky. I've never had spear pull on any of my palms (knock palm wood!). Although last spring I had a windmill drop two fronds and part of a spike when they started growing for the season. My pindo is showing some burn on its newly emerging frond, but its growing and green. A local palm buddy here (Turtile on GW) said they all suffer some cold damage during first winter in the ground. All the palms away from the porch were new last year, so they've gotten a good start and will fill in the holes. Also added more zone 8 gardenias that do well in protected back gardens. Can't really notice them in these pics, but they are covered with emerging flower buds. I've never been happy with the flowers on my zone 6 gardenia.

I am glad you enjoyed the reading. It sure was a wonderful trip. I am now trying to get all the pics offf my cell phone...sigh ...no memory card...and then I will get the whole thing put together. Will keep me busy for weeks ! c