I'm in coastal So Calif, and have grown Margaret Merril (one L) for a number of years. She tends to be extremely disease-free here for me, although I have been experiencing big mildew pressure for the past couple of months, and I noticed a bit of PM on her just this week for the first time ever. I have never had rust on her, and I have several roses who are rust-susceptible. Anyway, she is always extremely fragrant and has a tendency to want to grow big, so if you want to keep her smaller, I'd recommend deadheading her hard. She's one of those roses who starts to make new shoots high almost before the old ones are done (sorta like Frederick Mistral and some others ). So she can quickly grow huge if you don't keep on top of it, and sometimes you need to be ruthless and deadhead really low to keep her in bounds. She reblooms extremely fast, and doesn't sulk a bit at this treatment. It has been one of my neighborhood walker's favorite rose in my yard for a long time. When I dug up my original one b/c of the oak root rot fungus in my front yard, this guy actually came to my door to ask what happened to Margaret, LOL! I assured him that I would be replacing it with a potted specimen that I was already growing.

WOW! Panama John! HeHe. Boca Joe gave me the link to smug mug. I saw the Virginia Palm Society post a while back. It's an honor to talk to you guys. "I'm not worthy" lol! Your house looks beautiful. Send me an e-mail and let me know what weekend would be good for you. My wife and kids could come down and get the grand tour. It's such a small world. My brother lives in Stafford and is a police officer in Arlington. About a month ago he showed me a 10-12ft Trachy in one of the neighborhoods he rides through. It's a nasty neighborhood but an awesome tree. My brother discovered it in the middle of a snow storm last winter. Go figure. We are both obsessed with palms, tropicals, cycads, etc... I just wish our parents would've realized what types of plants we could've had when we lived there. I would have alot more experience with this stuff now. I've only been interested since I went to Florida in Feb 06. Drop me a line! I'm only about 70 miles away. Josh.

I don't know about growing them from seed, I would think any seed-growing info you can find in posts about any spiny terrestrials on the forum would work. Anything like Dykia, Hetchia, Deuterocohnia, etc. I have my Puyas growing in the ground and in pots...the ones in pots range from slightly more sandy potting mix to just whatever I use on any other plant. Sorry not to be any more helpful or specific for you. Are you planning on growing them outside, potted, in a greenhouse for the winter?

A microwave will sterilize soil as well...needs to be a bit damp to create a hot steam. Just read about it since some of my starts, one tray, has some fuzzy soil. i I jumped the gun and did not sterilize properly. The old tray i bleached but thought the bag of starter soil was fine. The NEast can be tricky. Hit or miss with herbs as they each need different requirements. I put mine out in full sun after the last frost...that can be end of may-first week of june. And then boom, we get some very hot weeks right away, so i have shade trays if that happens for tender leaf herbs like cilantro and most salads. Last year i had salad/herbs all summer by watching the weather. Cilantro needs some shade in July, basil thrives in the heat and full sun, most years. Chives are the easiest. I've got millions of them. Thyme is my lawn, easy. Cilantro i sow a dozen seeds every week for a dozen weeks and get an ok crop. Hit or miss. It can bolt in a weeks time so i just let it go on and collect the seeds like lars for coriander. In 20yrs gardening trying many things, it is not an easy one. If you like and use celery, i grow a leaf celery that grows like parsley...you just cut the leaves with a bit of thin stalk. It does very well in the NEast. Cut and it keeps coming back all summer. Lovely fresh celery flavor. celery.aspxhttp://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-8219-cutting-celery.aspx