Hi - We sell some old roses at the Sacramento Historic Rose Garden (Old City Cemetery) open garden every April - this year will be Apr 18th. Our usual college greenhouse hasn't been available so everybody's propagating at home (even Jeri is doing some for us) and our selection will be a bit random - lots of some varieties and not any of others. Hoffman von Fallersleben is one of our favorites and we usually have had it, since it's not widely in commerce, but this year I don't think anybody took cuttings of it. It would be great if you could come up for our open house, Masha, so long as you got home in time to get the guys into bed. We start at 9:30. You could bring the boys along - but they might get smeared with chocolate up here, because we usually have cookies and a very soft spot for little ones.(Daun's daughter had a cookie or two this year, I'm pretty sure.) Jeri's right about taking cuttings - it's just plain rude to do it in somebody else's garden without asking, whether or not it's public. We have roses that are diseased, or that we don't want cut for a variety of reasons. Very few of our roses are under patent, so that's not an issue, but it certainly would be at the Heritage or other public gardens. We also want people to use sterile pruners. And, we want to encourage people to buy from commercial vendors if roses are readily available. Our policy usually is that people who come help can take cuttings, but otherwise, it's on a case-by-case basis. Anita

Wow. This is certainly an older thread! My elementary school teacher gave me a jade plant. I had it for several years but it received no sunlight. I had no knowledge nor was I interested at the time but it grew very slowly. It never gave any indication that it was sick or tired or anything so it was never moved. It was near the stove the entire time so I wonder if steam and heat kept it going. After moving, my mother set it outside on the front porch where it got a blast of sun for the first time in so long. I panicked and brought it back in but it was too late. The jade plant died. I was so furious because it was really something special even though I wasn't truly interested in it at the time. Years later, I saw a jade plant growing in a tiny pot and I recalled the jade plant I had. I decided to buy it and it's been exactly 10 years now. I've made several cuttings from it to make some attempts at having it grow big and thick (I am convinced now that it must be some type of dwarf variety since it never got big or thick). Two years ago, I got another jade plant from a nursery which is growing very nicely that I made several cuttings from it to pot them up. I also received quite a few jade plant cuttings from a 2005 succulent sendoff (I can't remember who hosted it but I came in really late and the guy apologized that there wasn't more variety but I was ecstatic at the huge cuttings he gave me that I just potted them up instead of breaking them up into smaller plants!). And just shortly ago, I received more cuttings from a jade plant. I am really thankful to all those who were willing to share. I guess when it comes to types, I don't have very many. Most are jade plants. But when it comes to pots, I do have quite a bit. It happens when I get 'inspired' to try something so I get a cutting from the main plant and wait for the cutting to get big enough. I -used- to have a cactus collection. A store was selling these small cacti geared towards children. It'd be growing in a tiny terracotta pot with a plastic bag and colorful images of children gleefully looking at a smiling cactus or something. Every year, I'd get several if they were on sale and I'd end up repotting a few when they got too big for the tiny pot. I never had to bring them in for winter. They wintered outside very well but that was my fault because I tend to forget but when they survived the first winter, I just let them stay out every winter since. Then one winter was amazingly unusually cold. My entire cactus collection died. That was a surprise but I didn't really know any better at the time. The only cactus I have is something called "Opuntia Pusilla". I can't seem to find an official name for it as I've seen various names used for it. It is an ugly cactus that never grows big and it doesn't grow upwards. The *only* reason I still have mine (I've had them for more than 10 years and they've never ever been brought in. They've survived every type of winter thus far!) is because I really like how they flower. Otherwise, I would've thrown them away years back because they're ugly to look at. I'll admit, I've been lightly thinking on the idea of getting a 'proper' prickly pear but I shudder at the idea of handling cacti. I love them but I'm absolutely terrified of them. hehe. Here is a link that might be useful: Opuntia pusilla

I have several streaked hosta seedlings which overwintered in the ground from last year, but got nipped by a rabbit. One h.'Blue Lightning' seedling is promising and just now develops a scape which I want to use with pollen from large blues. Last winter I started in November to grow streaked hosta seedlings from seeds provided by Mr.Hosta of Land of the Giants. Here are those seedlings of h."Blue Lightning', 'Topo Gigio', 'Fickle Blue Genes' and 'Dorothy Benedict'. They are bigger than last year's already. I got last year a freebie 'Powder Keg' from LOTG but that hosta did not survive. I bought this year h.'Justice' at a Hosta Library auction. How do I like them? I do not know yet. The seedlings which will survive my culls will probably have some stabilized divisions, but it will be interesting. I am interested to create a streaked large blue one. Bernd This post was edited by berndnyz5 on Tue, Jul 2, 13 at 19:32

Carol, I'm being as careful as I can be, and it was "only" heat exhaustion that I had at a fire in 2006, not heat stroke. : ) Sometimes it is just so hot and you can't cool down enough especially if there is no shade at the fire scene, but we try to stay as cool as possible. Yesterday we had a firefighter go down and had to call paramedics, and today one of the local law enforcement officers got too hot and got sick. The heat here is just brutal. About half the fire departments in the county were out on fires overnight last night and into the early morning hours this morning, and we were joking about how much more pleasant it was to be "out there" when the temps were in the 80s in the moonlight than when they are well over 100 in the sunlight hours. Too bad we can't do our gardening in the moonlight, but there's that whole pesky snake issue. I've seen more snakes in the last 3 days than in the last 3 months. They are coming up to the house where I have soaker hoses around the foundation and lying on the cool, moist soil there. Dawn