I have never heard that pruning advice before. General advice could be to prune out 1/3 of the OLDEST canes in any given year to promote new basal growth. And even that's usually reserved for climbers and maybe really big OGRs. But then a lot of those really resent any hard pruning so it's not a rule for every rose. Heck if I did what your uncle suggests I'd be left with all one cane wonders! As for the other lady you probably did the best thing. Anything you said to her might have ticked her off. If you really want to try and educate her send her an email with a link to a good hybridizing site that will explain pollination to her. It's better coming from the web than from you if you want to keep her friendship.

I grew it when I lived in northern Minnesota. It grew great on the east side of the house. I didn't know the leaves were good for tea, but the bees absolutely loved the flowers.

Thanks Orchiddude! That palm is a solitaire palm. It's a great palm indoors and out! Tropicalbreezent got it right! Thanks Jim! Thanks jacklord. Im in SI, not as urban as most see NYC, but still not as much room as I would like to have! Thanks Bradleyo! Yeah, it gets to be a lot indoors, but luckily my family doesnt mind too much (well they mind, but they know how much it means to me!) and my dog is pretty good with not eating any plants (but she does love to get into the garbage). I will definitely post some indoor pics when the time comes! Thanks Island! Yup! I live in NYC! Some plants are in pots, some are in the ground. A few, like the palms in the ground, survive the winter with some protection (I just put some christmas lights and a garbage bin over them). Others like the elephant ears and bananas are easy to bring in and store for the winter. Some of the plants cant be dug up (like the coconut palm and tropical palms) so those are in pots and get put by a sunny window! The plumerias go dormant so they are pretty easy to keep indoors, but the large one might not fit indoors this year! The Passionvine, cannas, and ginger are hardy. The purple plants under the Elephant ears are called Purple Heart. They will be evergreen in your climate which is a huge plus! They look good up until temperatures get into the upper 20s, then they die back. They are hardy to zone 8 and up, but they come back for me since they are in a good microclimate. They are a little invasive, but easy to control and I think they are worth growing for sure! Thanks for looking everyone! -Alex

Yup. Put the whole head in a paper bag and set it in the back of the refer. It needs enough humidity not to dry out, but not so much as to rot. The vegetable bin generally has too much humidity. The further south you are, the longer it takes to avoid vernalization reset. We have had a string of warmer winters (according to friends that were born here). I was not getting 100% clove formation until I went to much longer chill. Last year I planted a split of 10 VS 12 week chill. I got a single round in the 10 week and the 12 week heads were all larger. I would love to get away with 6-8 weeks that less tropical growers can, but I don't like finding out next spring that half my garlic didn't. Getting seed early enough to chill that long isn't easy. I harvest in April, even the soutwest growers don't get all their crop into the drying sheds until June. I have found Filaree Garlic will put you on their Alaska ship schedule if you tell them why you need an earlier ship date than places like Alabama. Yong Farm has been able to get me seed early too. It is getting late in the order cycle. I need to get my order in as soon as they start accepting them to get my seed. I have been planting in mid to late December because of the long chill. My head size is not what I would like. I think getting the seed into the ground in October would produce larger heads. To that end, I will be planting some of my own seed, grown from bulbils, this October. I would like to be able to develop a couple of strains that are more heat tolerant. This all applies to hard neck garlic varieties. I have not messed with the soft necks yet. As a zone denier, I targeted hard necks because they are supposed to be the least likely to grow in in central Florida.