Quick update- I have spent all day/night (literally for the past 13 hrs and it is now almost 1am) fretting over the possible death of my guys; reading and reading and becoming more and more confused between the various websites' info. One thing that has not confused me is the confidence everyone on THIS site has in Al's GM [Al, how r u not mass producing this already?! ;-) ] The current status of my guys are that they r not sitting in water but have received 2 very hot and steamy treatments in my bathroom over the course of the night- i am hoping this will mAke due by supplying SOME semblance of water w/o drowning them.... one website I read mentioned letting the roots dry out??? Again- lil Miss Confused over here :-/ All is (hopefully) not lost bc thru my trusty google search and Turface's website, I've located a dealer who is less than 5 miles from me! :-D I'm emailing the unsuspecting manager tomorrow and hopefully will be able to move forward w/ what seems to be one of the hardest of the materials to find. *fingers crossed* I will admit that altho I have pics, I am simply too embarrassed to post them :( and also have further confused myself by reading mentions of the 5:1:1 mix but out of pure exhaustion have not fully read up on-yet. It sounds like Al's GM works for all of my guys including all of the succulents I have managed to NOT kill (yaaaay me!). From the fellow forum members' posts, sounds like I can find the proper bark and granite supplies at my local Home Depot. Al - I know you are out there somewhere and I thank you for sharing this knowledge with the rest of us newbies!!! Will post again RE: the process!

To post photos, you will need to join (also called signing up) for free a service like photobucket.com so the pictures are always accessible. When you upload the pictures into photobucket.com, you need to get the photobucket address where the pictures are stored so you can use them here in GardenWeb. This photobucket address looks like a long folder addresss in your PC, except it does not start with "C:" but something with the word photobucket.com. There are security settings in photobucket; make sure the settings are set to public or only you will be allowed to see the pictures and we will be blocked. Once you puload the pictures and get their addresses, you need to post a message in here -as usual- and, to keep things simple, type the URL address or addresses in this part of the message like so: http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s111/llluch/100_4191.jpg Other website that some people use are Yahoo, Google, etc. They work in the same way. You take digital pictures and save the pictures in your PC. You upload the pictures from your PC to the website that you join, get the folder where address where they store your pictures and paste the address in here.

Morning all, and HAPPY SPRING!!!!!! Yet another awesome weekend here in the TN valley with sun and mid-sixties! Y'all come down south and stay a spell, LOL! Loving the pics, keep them coming. I should have my secret pal's box ready to be shipped today! Also, those who are wanting Hellebore seedlings, I should have them dug and ready too. I'll give you a hint on who my secret pal is...s/he does NOT live in Tennessee :). Hi Cody! I am an orchid novice, so I am feeling out what grows best for me in my home conditions. I have had a phal and a dend/phal NOIDs for around 18 months and have been unable to get them to rebloom. I also have: Onc Dgmra. Winter Wonderland 'White Fairy' New ones on Friday: Ascda. Pralor 'Barbara Elmore' HCC/AOS that has red/orange bloom Epiden. 'Pixie Princess' H&R Epi. Veitchii Bulbophyllum pulchellum 'El' So, you see, I am kind of all over the place. The epi is in spike and I am excited!!! Jean, bird-bird looks great contrasting with your red walls! Beautiful bird! Dawn, you have a cutie baby bird too! I want a bird!!!! Trops, yes, I do have the plant that shoots seeds, Dorstenia. I do have Stuttgart, but I just got it last year, many thanks to both Marea and Susan for it! If it multiplies well, I would be happy to share. Thanks for the congrats on my weight loss. Add another pound to that! Or, should I say subtract another pound from me, LOL! I am eating normally now, just not sugar. I even bought a big bag of M&M's for my pal and it didn't call out my name. I have been eating Blue Bunny ice cream, the carb-free or sugar free varieties and I can't tell. I ate peanut brittle ice cream last night, YUM! OK, better get busy. I have a "Yeah, I'll get too it" list a mile long for today. I have been up for 4 hours already and have gotten zip done. Y'all have a wonderful day full of love, laughs, and sunshine! Life is good... ~ Canna

Cody, Wanted to touch on the subject of trading...first so sorry to hear you got burned on the dahlia's as I have had the same problem this year. I made a trade for dahlia's for daylilies and the dahlias I got where dried up and still have not done anything. I am hoping they will but so far nothing. I am not good at growing dahlia's so it could be me. I have had some awesome trades this year. The worst one I have sent this year was to Joey as when I walked into the garden the morning I dug his things I almost broke my leg from the trench I steped into unknowningly. When I started moving the mulch back and digging every plant had been chewed up. It took less that 24 hours to hit several drug stores and buy all the caster oil I could get my hands on and I soaked the ground all over. Had some really pretty and shiny plants. Now back to what I was going to say. I sent several trades that where pretty big back in the fall and got tiny sickly plants in exchange. I swore I was not going to trade with anyone again...then spring fever hit and I made a trade that went beautifully so I did a few others. I have been super pleased but I have also been pretty careful as to who I trade with. I have met some great people and have gotten some plants that I can not find around here and the mail order thing has been very disappointing to me so I have taken some chances. I look at it like this...if you burn me once you will never get a second chance to do it again. As I said in the above post I got three boxes of plants in today and I could not be more pleased in the boxes I got. Carols was awesome, besides Carols I made a trade with a guy in NC for some sedums and a few other things, well here is what he sent me Sedum 'Carmen' x1 Sedum 'Neon' x2 *Caryopteris 'Worcester Gold' x1 *Physocarpus 'Diablo' - ninebark x1 Sedum 'Kamschaticum variegatum' x2 Centranthus Ruber 'Jupiter's Beard' x2 Stachys Byzantia 'Helen von Steine' x 2 The box weighed 14 pounds. I would have paid $200 at any nursery around here for the size plants he sent me. He even added a few extra things. I will be trading with him again. The Centranthus Ruber 'Jupiter's Beard' are both sitting in 5 gallon buckets...that is how big they are. The sedums have no growing room at all in the 3 gallon pots I put them in as a temp home till I get the new bed ready. It was completely unbelievable. The other trade I got was for an Orange Flowering Maple and a few Chinese Lanterns. The flowering maple was 3 feet tall and my daughter counted 63 flowers and buds on it and it was still in dirt and looked awesome. It has been a wonderful day in my Neiborhood. Ok It is 2am and I need to be in the garden at 6am so I wish everyone and great day with lots of blooms. Deni