Thanks for the nice words. At some point I would like to buy a nice camera with macro lenses, etc to take pics like I used to when I had an SLR of the film variety, but for now I use my daughters old point-and-shoot which is a big step up from mine that is for sure! I keep thinking one of the new micro 4/3 since they have interchangeable lenses, but that would be a hassle when you are traveling and it is hard to justify 2 cameras I suppose. I am just a hobbyist like most of the rest on GW. Someday I will have a Greenhouse, but not while I have kids in college for the next 7 years that is for sure. I have loved plants/animals since I was very little and got in to classes over the summer 2 years before I was supposed to be allowed to take them because of my interest. We used to collect caterpillars, snakes, turtles, etc. and feed them for the summer before letting them go. I had my first bonsai that my dad got me when I was around 10 (long since gone) and planted/tended the family garden around that same age just because I enjoyed doing it and being outside. In other words; total nerd! Some of my bulbs I get from friends in trade, but the majority are from importing, which I have been doing for a decade now, as that is the easiest way to get large bulbs of unusual species. I typically organize buys from places like South Africa for a group of like-minded people as that way we defray the costs and everyone gets something different. I just put in a group order for some rare Haemanthus, Gethyllis, Crinum, Strumaria, Massonia, Boophane, etc. so hopefully they will arrive before we get too cold. Anyway, that is my story :o) Dan

RobNelms, I think you need to take a long view on thisâ¦..you should still have these plants in a decade and then the decade after thatâ¦.or longer!! What you desperately need to do now is not kill itâ¦..while I'm sure you can get away with glazed or plastic pots in the future (I have one of mine in a glazed pot and all my 2-4 year old seedlings in plastic pots) what you want right now is PERFECT drainage to get the roots established. When you have a pot full of roots they can take more watering and less drainage (plastic and glazed pots by default have less drainage because their is less loss of water via the clay pot), but now you need to not lose your beautiful plant. I've posted a lot of times, I use pure volcanic cinder or pure pumice for my plantsâ¦.I'm sure in more ideal conditions you can get away with some potting mix or whatever, but I know my conditions are no where near perfect! For now I think you want lots of warmth so I would keep them inside. My plants are very well established so mine go outside starting in April and come back in late Oct. I leave mine out as long as it is not going in to the 30s at nightâ¦.this is what they see in their native habitatâ¦..but yours are not nearly well enough established so keep them warm in your houseâ¦maybe even give them bottom heat for now. I'm sure you can succeed with this plant, but please keep it in perfect drainage for nowâ¦â¦experiment when you have more to experiment with!! I just harvested my latest seed pod to mature so I hope in a few weeks I have another 50 or so seedlings nicely growing. Rick, if I get flowers on my Scilla next fall and they set seed you are welcome to someâ¦.I just never make an attempt to set seed since I have no room for more anyway. By the way, one of my Scadoxus nutans offsets is growing a leaf despite hanging next to the pot of soil in the air so I will cut it off and get it in a separate potâ¦.if it grows roots it is yours in the spring. It has lots of root buds so maybe it will quickly root. Good growing all :o) Dan

LOL Karen! Too funny! Is that like the regifting rule that you need to rewrap it? :) I looked around and tried to guess what you might like to even us up a little. I have a senecio that's a succulent called hot dog plant, not hardy, and a little houseplant that has adorable bulbs with freckled leaves, used to be scilla violacea, now it's a manfredia, i think. I also have some walking iris pups i could pot up, a pot of variegated french lavendar, which is ratty but will fill out nicely this summer, but isn't hardy, and some of that ornamental red leafed yellow flowered oxalis. Also, i could bring one of my pots of the puberula that i got at bb's, which i found the tag for that said z8, and is just labelled rosebud sage, if you'd like. BTW, I lost that cool sage that looked like a variegated koyame but plan to get more when i get down to bb's. Dana no worries- it's a really small start. The dirt's gotten hard & dry again, just like that. If it's happy it'll take off and go, though. I've had mine for oh, about 14 years. Deb, Karen & Alicia. I feel awful having to report this, but i was digging up those small rosette delizy starts and not a one of them had rooted for real. Dad gummed things really fooled me- they were stuck in but good and had new growth, but no real roots. So i went ahead and got them out of the ground and into little pots. They were well healed, nice & bumpy, and looked to be beginning the rooting process. I can either bring them and you can see if they'll root, or I can keep them here with plans to bring them come fall. Your choice- just let me know what you want me to do and if you want something else. The mother bush is getting ready to bloom and not really big, so i hate to do cuttings now. They supposedly do much better if taken after the first flush anyhow, so i may attempt to root more after that in june.

Am so excited to have drupes on the new Edgeworthia papyrifera that I got this spring. If I can catch them at the right stage of ripe and then get them to germinate ~a year from now, it will probably only be another decade before flowering. So why am I so excited? I don't know but have decided to just enjoy the moment.