Izhar! That is one beautiful leaf! Once that plant grows, you will be amazed at how much pleasure it will bring you. I have a few of these and what I like about them the most is that they take up no prime sunny space in the house or yard. I just stick them in the cellar where there is barely any light, or dark corners of the house, north facing windows where almost none of my other plants will grow, or the the yard under trees and shrubs. I just love them. I never get bugs on mine either. I can't even believe that you got one to sprout. I have tried and failed. That is a great job. Thanks for the info on the white stuff. I like your idea about keeping pH down. Very good idea. Toni: Thank you for that although they are not as pretty as Izhars! I will hold of on ordering. I saw some on e-bay from Vietnam too, and now those caught my eye. Sometimes I wonder why so many unusual plants are so hard to find here in the U.S. Hope everyone has a great day today! 82 here today again. I love it. Mike

Also... here are the levels in the tank.. I started the tank on 7/12. day 7 (7/18) - Nitrate 0, Nitrite 0, Hardness 75, Chlorine 0, Alkalinity 40, pH 6.8 day 11 (7/22) - Nitrate 0, Nitrite .05, Hardness 25, Chlorine 0, Alkalinity 80, pH 7.0 day 15 (7/26) - Nitrate 5, Nitrite 3.0, Hardness 50, Chlorine 0, Alkalinity 40, pH 7.0 day 15 (7/26) added the salt, tested again, - Nitrate 5, Nitrite 3.0, Hardness 75, Chlorine 0, Alkalinity 80, pH 7.0 day 18 (7/29) - Nitrate 15, Nitrite 10, Hardness 75, Chlorine 0, Alkalinity 60, pH 7.0 day 21 (8/01) same - Nitrate 15, Nitrite 10, Hardness 75, Chlorine 0, Alkalinity 60, pH 7.0 Here is a link that might be useful:

I really appreciate all of the replies that I have gotten. It was so nice to get some advice and encouragement and I can't wait to read and chat more with everyone. First of all, I was really surprised by the Round-Up stuff not working. It was the pre=mixed stuff and it surely did not work. Not only that but I went out in the front yard today and the dandilions are even bigger and taller now! I would like to get most of them out by hand, that is not a big deal, but a lot of them are in between my tulips and hosta plants in the front yard and they are surrounded by landscaping rocks so I may have to just remove those by hand with a smaller weeder. I was so happy today! I had my yonger brother and sister (17 and 14 respectively) and my little sister's boyfriend and my mom over and everyone helped me with the yard today! My brother mowed my lawn (he loves to mow for some reason) and my sister and her boyfriend helped clear out the leaves and junk off of my concrete patio while my mom and I raked the lawn of all the nasty decomposed leaves, twigs, branches, etc. And when all of that was done, my mom and sister and I planted a bunch of Morning Glories and Moonflowers along my privacy fence and then we put Impatiens along the back of the house, planted a couple of Dianthus Raspberry Parfait plants in pots in my back yard. Also in the back we planted bulbs for a couple of kinds of flowers. In the front my mom and I planted Begonias and Moss Rose plants. While my mom and I were planting those in the flower boxes in my front yard, some lady walked by with her kids and said, "Oh kids look at the pretty flowers!" and I was so excited. FINALLY my yard is looking nice enough that people are complimenting it. That hardest thing though is that my road is very busy and I get a lot of trash in my yard. It's so frustrating to try to keep up with getting the trash out of the yard. I think I might get an extra (small) garbage can to put by the fence so that I can just pick up trash and dump it in there. I really appreciate all the suggestions and feel better about everything now that I have made a substantial amount of progress and that I know I will not be able to get rid of all the weeds right away and that not all of the work is going to get done immediately. But the fresh air and exercise is good for me and the sun is good for me too according to my Dr. :) It was encouraging, too, to hear someone say that they got some good exercise gardening and congratulations on your weight loss! It must have taken some hard work! Thanks again and look forward to posting more soon!

Aloha all, my surgery went very well, so TY very much if you prayed for me. :) The surgical staff were only expecting one problem and they found 2. They did a great job, everything considered. I am still healing up and sore in spots, but despite this I already feel tons better than I did before I had the operation. :) I'm very grateful my health is turning around. About water chestnuts- I don't have a water garden (or water chestnuts) right now but I used to grow them when I lived in Calif. Some large cities such as San Francisco, CA and Houston, TX have a Chinatown. In Chinatown there are Asian veggie markets that sell fresh, unpeeled water chestnuts when they are in season. If you put an unpeeled fresh water chestnut in a water garden it can grow and multiply. Also, water chestnut is sold by a website that specializes in water plants. If you want the specific info please email me, so I can avoid spamming everyone with a merchant URL.