Thanks for all the replies, and sorry for the delay, Iv been spending lots of time at work and in the garden. I ended up going with the 5 gallon buckets, had the husband drill some drainage holes in them....I want to say like 5/8" or so big (I have yet to master looking at something and being able to tell the size/distance). I talked to a few farmers around here one of which grows many berries and ended up going with about 50/50 peat moss and pine bark mulch. We also hooked up a timed drip irrigation to the plants to keep them nice and moist. I was out there this morning checking on things and am happy to report that all of the plants are covered in healthy looking buds!!! Again thanks for the wonderful advise, everyone on this site has been nothing but informative and patient with newbies like myself!!

Thank you all for stopping by! Seil: Thank you! I hope NL makes it, too. I'll see how she comes through the winter; we're getting *Plenty* of precipitation and I have no plans to shovel prune her until she flat out kicks the bucket! Thank you, canadian_rose! They were both great plants their first year and the bands from RVR were large and healthy. I am really looking forward seeing how they take off in the next two years; both are supposed to get quite large and I gave them generous fence space to go as crazy as they want! Thank you, Sara-Ann! iris_gal: I think it must be a guy thing! DH loves the bright, bold colors and thinks the color changing phenomenon is really cool. I have to agree; I love the color changers, but I am more drawn to the softer blended color ways, myself. RVR sells the rose I have as 'Talisman, Cl', introduced in 1930, although it doesn't list any parent info, unfortunately.

I'm in Palm Coast in NE Florida. New to the forum. This winter was so warm that I covered my scotch bonnets and aji cachucha plants with blankets and all survived.

On the other hand, a good portion of the fresh Lychees being sold in America are grown in Florida (although it's an overall small market). Fresh lychees don't last very long in storage and need to be immediately refrigerated, so growing them in the U.S. has an advantage because the logistics make it easier to get to market faster. As much as America has difficulty competing with cheap labor costs in the Third World, one of the things America has going for it is a better infrastructure system. Also lychees appreciate a tiny amount of Winter chill, helps them be more productive later, so Florida really has an ideal climate. If you go to your local supermarket and pay close attention to the labels, you may have noticed that a lot of the fruit is not grown in America anymore. Like squam256 stated, it is because of cheaper labor costs in other parts of the world. A lot of the fruit is grown in Mexico or Chile. Of course it makes sense to import bananas and coconuts from countries closer to the equator, these fruits grow much better in tropical climates. But when the U.S. is importing apples and berries from Third World countries to line the shelves of supermarket produce sections, one realizes how much domestic American farm production has been decimated by cheap foreign imports. Of course, when you import fruit from other countries it takes longer to get here, so usually is not quite as fresh and does not taste as good. But rather than demanding more locally grown fruit, the reaction from American consumers seems to be avoiding the produce section altogether! From the perspective of the average consumer, fruit just does not seem to taste as enticing as it once did, and they can't be bothered to worry about why. Fruit consumption as a whole is suffering.