daskitab, From my experience Hens and Chicks can grow fairly quickly in favorable conditions. It depends if you have them outside , what climate your in etc. I would start now if only to allow for trial and error. I have propagated Hens all the ways you can and I've had most success with them growing from a a stem cutting given to me by a neigbor. I simply place it on some soil and let it do its thing. I only mist it once every few days. I will more as summer gets in full swing. GOOD LUCK.. And you will have success as long as your patient. I think the best advice I can offer is DONT OVER WATER !!!!! They can survIVE underwatering but over watering will definitley kill them ..

I don't know how easy Needles are to separate. But my clump started to suckering within a single season, so now there are developing Needle suckers where there were none in April. I don't intend to separate for a few reasons. Not sure how well suckers can survive at this stage and not quite sure how to do it though assume easier than with Med. fan which seem notoriously difficult. Also, I want the clump to build up food and mass for the winter and severing the suckers would seem to defeat this as they have only been in the site for 1.5 years. Thinking of which palms I regularly divide by pups and the only one that comes to mind is Raphis (Lady palms), which are easy. I agree with Lago, if you want to propagate palms go with seeds, some are real EASY. Try Washingtonia, Phoenix canarience, and maybe Queens and Butia capiata. Butias are supposed to be slow but my Butias seem to be on steroids!! :)

Diane, It is a challenge to figure it out, isn't it! It is safe to say that I could grow zero brussels sprouts and my family would be delighted...so that one is easy to figure out. (I like 'em fresh but no one else cares for them. LOL) Today we were looking at fresh produce at Central Market in Fort Worth (yes, I was in hog heaven, thank you very much) and Tim sampled a tiny cup of black-eyed peas. Now, several thoughts ran through my mind. First of all, do they "have to" give away samples of black-eyed peas to get people to try them? Secondly, doesn't everyone know what blackeyed peas taste like? LOL Finally, when my dear husband looked at the bag of more-or-less freshly hulled black-eyed peas (maybe a pint of fresh peas in that bag) and saw they were $5.99, I practically purred like a kitten, thinking of all the pint bags of freshly-shelled (then frozen) black-eyed peas in our freezer.....all of which grew right here in our good old Oklahoma soil with no chemicals, etc. I felt smug and content (in a good way, NOT in a conceited 'holier-than-thou-because-we-grow-our-own" way) but more than that I felt grateful that we are able to grow our own and process/preserve them to be eaten later on. It is the most wonderful feeling in the world to be feeding your family from your own garden and to know where your food came from and how it was raised. I have a pressure canner but have only done BWB stuff this year along with tons of dehydrating and freezing. I go on canning binges....can a lot some years, less in others. With this year's recurring rains, I've put up more food for the 'off-season' than in many prior drought years, and I am really happy about that. So far, one thing I've learned is that no matter how many beans and peas I plant, we eat them all long before the next gardening season rolls around. So, I am planning on lots more next year. Yesterday I picked Roma beans from the garden...and I don't even remember which variety I have except that they are the bush form and that it was from Franchi Simenti seed, and they are so good that I know I must plant many more of them next year. I can only remember one year in recent memory....and it might have been 2004....where I put up enough beans to get us from one gardening year to the next without running out. Growing the soil is why new beds take me so long to build too. In the long run, it is worth it of course, but turning clay into great garden loam certainly involves a long commitment! And, yet, I don't know how we could have done it any differently. I have found very few (almost no) spots in Love County that have a nice, rich, humusy sandy loam that is naturally occurring. For most people here, there are three choices: very sandy soil that drains too quickly in dry years and is prone to nematodes, heavy, thick red (but highly fertile) clay like we have here, and caliche clay full of rocks. So, with those three to choose from, I'm glad we have the clay, but I also appreciate our one small band of sand that cuts across the yard. I greow pecan and fruit trees in that band of sandy soil and they love it. Got your eye on a specific brand of canner? As for jars, I collect them. hee hee I can't walk past jars or lids without wanting more......"just in case". Even if I have plenty of empty jars sitting in storage waiting to be used, I almost have a panic attack when the stores start putting the jars and lids on clearance in the fall. What if I need jars a month or two from now and can't find any? (This has never happened--I always have jars tucked away in the pantry or in a closet, but "what if?" LOL). I always thought I'd have a smaller garden as time went on and we got older, but now I'm growing enough for 2 families instead of 1, so I'm growing more. (Although, DS and his wife and their daughter don't eat as many veggies as we do, except for french fries and green beans...and salsa.) My all-time favorite dedicated kitchen garden spot was an 8' x 8' raised bed in which I planted a "Salsa Garden". It was just outside the back door and in it I had tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic and cilantro. If you had a sudden urge to make salsa, everything was right there. I later planted a few rose bushes in that raised bed and enjoyed that, but I liked it better as a salsa garden. Dawn

The one I have in the ground is not doing as well as I like. It is quite slow. Unfortunately, I planted it right before our hurricane. She made it through that without a hitch, but not long after that I had several floods. She grew backwards for awhile, but seems to be holding her own for now (at least). On the other hand, the two that I have in pots are doing quite well. My larger one, I got in a 1 gallon pot last spring. The smaller one was just a tiny cutting last Feb. They are both in 7 gallon pots now. The smaller one is probably about 3 feet tall and two feet wide. It has not been cut back at all. I have clipped the roses off and anything dead out. The tall one was maybe 10 feet tall in early October. I cut her back to about 3 1/2 feet tall. I did not really want to go so low but she had been attacked by some kind of bore that got into some of her canes around the time of the hurricane. She is a good 5 feet tall again and putting out wonderful roses. I am sure you will love her. I just can't brag enough about her. Someday, I hope to try some of the jelly that was on Cool's Craft page, because I have always said she smells good enough to eat. :) Good luck with yours.