Hi Averil, here are some Arabicum pics for you......they are of the Bouquet variety and from seeds that Rick kindly gifted to me. In the pic below it may not be that clear but the left hand plant does show branches growing in most directions but the centre and right hand plants only have arms in just one plane! The left one has 5 really bulbous branches and looks very different to the other two. Guess they don't look so leafless really but this is the best they've looked and are different to my obesums. The leaves often get damaged and grow deformed as if glued together when emerging. None have been pinched out at any time. Gill UK

Everybody talks about too much N. Let's discuss too much N. In the gardens, I toss organics, and feed weekly with my own mix (mostly urea) at a rate of 0.25 pounds of N per week per thousand square feet. It's a grand total of well over 2 pounds N per month, or far beyond the recommendation. The pots...succulents, perennials, and bulbs are treated rather gently and with organic feeding. Annuals I feed the absolute heck out of. Miracle-Gro plus organics every two weeks. Plus some other stuff I throw in, like some extra urea. And kelp. The result of "too much" N is a lot of blooms--just on gigantic plants (photo below of a strictly average year, August 10th). The difference here is that I've had the soil tested, balanced the garden soil to a decent pH of 6.3 (with a proper calcium-magnesium-potassium ratio, or, don't use a home test which tells you exactly nothing about the right balance), set the phosphorus levels high and balanced other resources high to compensate for phosphorus antagonism, etc. It's not everybody's cup of tea, and some plants absolutely do object to too much N. But...most don't. And in the past, petunias, lantanas, have all been amongst those in my garden that haven't. Actually, ask me about the three foot tall lantana with the tap root I couldn't get out for two years. Gorgeous. Sturdy. Never repeated.

If you think your salad is absorbing too much dressing then wait until the pasta has cooled before you add the salad dressing. Also, what are you putting in your pasta salad? Do you add things with punchy flavor like greek olives, capers, dressing with garlic and good olive oil? I don't add dressing to mine. Instead I pour olive oil, lemon juice, herbs and flavorings directly on to the cooled pasta, toss, taste, add a little more of this and that. If you are looking for a great dressing though, I love this Ina Garten viaigarette: 2 cloves garlic, minced (I use granulated garlic - I'm allergic to fresh) 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard 1/4 cup good red wine vinegar 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1/2 cup good olive oil

Update: Well, it's been about a month in, and things are going much, much better. I picked up a few tips along the way from here and Reddit which have helped. The tip that make the biggest difference is if there is a mixed load of different weights of fabrics, put it on time dry. That right there was a game-changer. Now, yes stuff is still a tad bit wrinkly, but not a crumpled mess like before. A good shaking-out before folding or hanging helps, and another tip was to use wool dryer balls; that also helps with the wrinkles. I'm also getting used to the different feel of the dried clothes that come out of this type of dryer -- clothes don't feel "cooked" like they tend to in a vented dryer; they're dry but not dried out, if that makes any sense. And they're softer. Definitely Bed Linens setting for sheets and blankets -- sheets come out perfect on that setting. I've been using Normal for towels, which is working well, and I discovered the Table Linens settings buried in the more settings option -- the tablecloths come out way better on this setting than on the Normal setting; why I don't know, but they do. So yea, it's going much, much better now that I'm on the downslope of the learning curve. This thing really does take getting used to, it's not intuitive and it's very different than a conventional vented dryer. Not worse -- in fact I like it better -- just different.