Thank you friends.... Chris, what is your zone? This is December, it is too cold for grafts. I normally do my graft right after first blooming season. Around July, so the scions have enough time to grow before winter comes. Hot sunny weather helps. Type in search area (Result of last year grafts) to see my 2012 grafts. Grafting is not hard, it takes practices. John, if you stay in Thailand, you have great weather and you can do your grafting anytime. The most important point is to soak your knifes in rubbing alcohol for 2-3 minutes before you start and often clean your knifes during the process and dry it with clean paper towel. (I used one side razer blade, easy to hold) Ask more question, I will try to help. Many people had different steps, but my steps I wrote in (Result of last year grafts). Marie

LightCyan, Nice work. looks like you will have some nice blooms in a couple of weeks. You will soon be familiar with what we call an "ohcomeonalready" moment. That precise point in time when your bloom clock is up but the plant is still taking its sweet time. Becky, I think the key thing will be the size of the bark you want to add. Each Gritty mix component must have a specific size in order for the engineering and physics to work just right. My recommendation would be to use gritty mix for rooting as is without amendments if you have it. After all it's perfect as is... ; P K

Y'all make me laugh. Goats would work but some neighbors don't appreciate having goats next door. I happen to love goats, but don't have any and don't want them. I already have enough animals and plants to feed and care for. We do have neighbors with goats, and if there is anything cuter than little kids playing in the pasture or goat yard, I don't know what it is. Goats are great unless they find a way into someone's vegetable garden, and then they can become demons of destruction. Kate, I love invasive vines and plant them on purpose because they generally survive drought on no rainfall, unlike everything else around here. They do make a wonderful privacy screen. If you want to cut and remove them, you will have the best success by cutting them off at ground level and painting a brush killer onto the stumps. Or, drill holes in the stumps and pour the brush killer into the holes. Nothing else will get rid of aggresive vining plants, and there is nothing organic that works even 10% as well on aggressive vines as a synthetic brush killer. You have to be careful, though, and cannot compost any of the plant matter from plants treated with brush killer as it sometimes degrades very slowly and can survive the composting process and then kill plants you try to grow in compost that contains traces of the brush killer. I am thinking about extending the eastern edge of our garden about 20' by moving the fence 20' east from where it sits now just so I can plant a row of aggressive vines along the east and south garden fencelines. I was watching our neighbor's hired hand drive back and forth pulling a spray rig behind him for the last two days and I know what this means 9 times out of 10. It means his herbicide drift will reach my tomato plants and severely harm or kill them. As I pondered what I could grow as a living border to protect the plants, it occurred to me that trumpet creeper would do it. Now I'm going to have to break the news to Tim that I want to extend the size of the garden just so I have room to plant some highly invasive vines. He hates putting up new fencing (after fencing in our 14.4 acres when we bought it, he swore he'd never put up any more fencing again). Ha! It is like pulling teeth to get him to put up more fencing, but I've managed to get him to fence in gardens, chicken runs and a dog yard that keeps our dogs contained in one spot. Be sure you really want to get rid of the vines before you do it because it is a ton of work, and you lose a ton of privacy and also a living barrier that may keep your neighbors' use of herbicide from sending drift into your garden that will kill your plants. I get herbicide drift when local ranchers spray herbicides in their fields, when the county road workers spray roadside areas that are too steep to mow (like the banks of our creek near the county road/bridge), and when the railroad sprays the area alongside the tracks that are well over a mile away from us. The more highly invasive plants I can grow to our east the better since all the sprayed areas from which we get herbicide drift are to our east because our woodlands protect us from the south (mostly), the west and the north, the better it is for all the flowers, veggies and herbs I love to grow. Sometimes highly invasive vines serve a very useful purpose. Good luck killing them, if you're sure that's what you want. Dawn

Your method may very well work for you if you have naturally-high humidity. If your humidity plummets, then all bets are off, unless you cover them with an air-tight plastic covering or clear to transluscent container. I just keep a clear plastic storage container partially under a tree for the summer. It is filled with a couple inches of 1/2 perlite and 1/2 potting soil. As I find things to root, in they go into the container. It's protected from bugs and critters, maintains really high humidity and stays warm. I've had success rooting citrus, bougainvillea, holly, and many other things that can be tricky or take a long time. I do use hormone too. But mainly the optimal rooting environment has light, is warm, protected from bugs and critters, fairly free of fungus, and very humid.