Steve- Bamboo do quite well with spacing on their own without needing chain saw intervention. The ideal spacing is what the plant thinks it needs. If you take out old, dead culms, that's no problem. But if you remove culms with viable leaves you're going to reduce the capacity of the plant's aboveground biosystem, and possibly slow down growth. I'd let it alone right now, and prune out culms based on esthetic considerations in the fall...if you still think it's necessary then.

Chris and Bill, I would love to learn grafting, and have actually researched this in the, not to distant, past. The first requirement, I would imagine, is the availability of appropriate root-stock, which I do not have. Another thing that has been on my to do list, is going down to visit Luc at FCN. I would consider the 4 hr. round trip, and approximately $60.00 in diesel, an investment in Plumeria knowledge, rather than an exorbitant price to pay in saving a $30.00 cutting! Unfortunately, I am in a time crunch, as I need to prepare for an eight or nine-day business trip, that begins Sunday. I feel that I should do something today or tomorrow, and hope for the best while I am gone. So I will submerge 2 of the 4 inches in my tried-and-true mix and try my best not to think about it while I am gone. WRF, Yes I did see the thread on water rooting, which I found very interesting, since I was under the impression that this could not be done without rotting the stem. I would consider this method, if it were not for my trip. All the rain we get down here seems too much sometimes. I have some plumeria that grow very fast, with wide leaf spacing and very green stems of great length. With the summer sun almost straight up in the sky, I do not have any area that I can leave my young, potted plants and cuttings, where they will get adequate direct sun, and be protected from the rain. When I am around the house, I move them, sometimes several times a day, when rain threatens. When I am not home, I usually need to leave them in a bright shade spot, where they will, hopefully, stay dry if it rains. Never assume it won't rain down here! This will need to be the case for this cutting while I am out of town. What South Florida city do you live in. Why do you list so many zones? Mahalo, Bob

Last year I wasn't sure how many plants to plant and I wanted to have a good variety, so I grew about 12 different varieties, 2 of each, for a total of 24 plants. It was just me and my wife, but I figured I wanted to try out a bunch of different varieties and figured on some possibly being duds, dying off, etc. Well, even with last year being terrible for tomato growing, I still had enough that we were eating tomatoes for lunch and dinner (hadn't found a breakfast tomato dish yet, heh), making salsa, bruschetta, and tomato sauce by the gallon, I gave 10 pound bags of tomatoes to my parents and in-laws, friends, people at work, etc... And even with all that, my kitchen counter, island, and back patio table were covered in tomatoes of varying degrees of ripeness. I didn't can any tomatoes since I frankly didn't expect what I got and was overwhelmed, and since I've never done canning, I was afraid to mess it up, heh. Those we didn't use, we gave away to friends and family. For the coming year, I want to can some, but additionally I was thinking of donating extras to local charities. That being said, I'm cutting back a little this year, from 24 plants to 18 total - I figure I'll spread them out a little more than I did originally (my garden got a little crowded towards the end of the season) and I also figured that if this season turns out to be any good at all, I should likely get even more tomatoes out of less plants. In my opinion, since you plan to can extensively, make sauces, etc., and you seem to have a short season potentially, I would still think that 50 would be enough - but being the person I am, I tend to think you should grow as many as you can comfortably. If you have extras that you can't can or use fresh, etc., I'd just give those to peopl who can use them. I am of the train of thought that I'd rather have my yard used for growing things I can eat rather than silly grass (and some weeds), heh.

Quite the haul, Neil & lovely story!! Plant people are usually generous, as shown by these folks! Which plants did they bring from Mexico 40 yrs ago? You need blooms to identify your plants. Some differences are more obvious than others, but many plants are variable (hence the need for blooms). Rina, happy to jump in. You do very well with IDs & are way more helpful to people than I am! Have been running a back up on my laptop all morning (trying to copy 136 GB -mostly pix!). Running off to ranch duty now. Horse to move, 2 babies in training, hubby riding, la la la! Yes, LIFE gets in my way of my obssession!!