Edie, thanks for the comments! I never realized that the splitting top layer of the bulb was a sign of growth, which now seems to be a pretty obvious fact. Glad yours is getting ready to put on a show! Please post pictures! Just wanted to post one last update on my Neon this year. The scape in the picture posted on Oct. 8 did fully develop and bloom, although I only had 6 flowers on this one. They bloomed one after another and the last 2 opened after I'd taken the plant in and were rather pale. Amazingly, it bloomed despite rather low night temps (falling all the way to 3-5 deg. C) and day temps in the range of 8-15 deg. C. The shot was taken on Oct. 26. I took it in in mid November and pinched off last wilted flower yesterday. The bottom couple of leaves have gone yellow and I took the bulb into my plants' winter quarters were the temps are around 3-10 deg. C. Hopefully, it will bloom for me in the spring/summer. Lena

To find your old posts, you can use the Search function. You'll find it towards the bottom of the index page of each GW sub-forum. You have the option of searching that sub-forum or the entire site (but to search a single other sub-forum, you'll have to go to that sub-forum and do your search there. Enter your user-name. (You can add other words, but I'm never certain if it's an AND search or an OR search -- maybe it used to be OR but now it's AND?) It will bring up threads you've started, threads you've posted on, and also threads where your user-name is merely mentioned by someone else. I don't know if the search finds everything or not. I don't know the extent to which very old posts will show up in a search. If this doesn't work for you, you can go to Google and use their Advanced Search. The last I knew, Advanced Search could only be accessed by first making a regular search; at the bottom of the page of results the "Advanced Search" option will appear. Click on the link to go to Advanced Search. In Advanced Search, there are many options for entering terms, and you can also limit searches to a particular site or a section of that site. Before you enter a GW url in Google Advanced Search, be aware that not all GW sub-forums begin with the same address. Some are forums.gardenweb.com and others are forums2.gardenweb.com. It's possible to use more of the url so that your search is limited to a particular GW forum: for example, forums.gardenweb.com/forums/cacti -- or should it be forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/cacti? I haven't tried to figure that out. I don't know if Google Advanced Search will find every post you've made in that sub-forum or not. I've had successful searches that seemed to bring up everything I thought it should, as well as other searches that gave me very strange results. Happy searching!

These are a gimmick. They have some kind of paint or dye on them, likely intended for temporary d.ecoration, similar to painted poinsettias or poor little NIP's with fake snow sprayed on them. On the plant on the left, you can see where some of the color has chipped off. The sad thing is that if they'd just put the "regular" little succulent plants in the sun, most will develop very pretty colors naturally, and usually some kind of flowers. Dye/paint is not necessary to achieve great natural colors though the tones in those pics are not natural, so not naturally possible to duplicate. Although I'm not interested in this look, I still say more power to those who want to temporarily d.ecorate with these plants, even if I (or someone else, never was clear on that) was threatened with physical violence last time I got involved in a discussion about these plants. I don't see any difference between that and someone b.uying annuals to decorate flower beds or pots, that are really perennials that just can't permanently live where they are placed. Also, like the Thanksgiving/Christmas cactus, some of these plants may only be seen by some people in this form, and/or only at this time of year. In that case, I see no harm in trying to rescue one vs. not having the plant at all. The fact that any are purchased would send a wrong m.essage from my personal perspective to the grower/store. It would be terrible irony if saving them out of disgust resulted in "them" thinking people want more. For that reason, I would not purchase them. Though no plant is immune to dying at my house unexpectedly, I'm not interested in temporary plants except a very few 'annuals' for outside. The color may wear off, or maybe all of the leaves completely covered with color are doomed, IDK. If anyone has a theory about the possible longevity of these plants, or has tried rescuing one, I haven't seen any discussion about it here. Understandable considering how ugly and emotional some of the comments have been when folks are just trying to figure out what's going on with these, and probably some are wondering if they can survive long-term. I hope this discussion doesn't go the same way. (Mid-word periods added to fool auto-ad attached to my words. I'm not s.elling anything here.) This post was edited by purpleinopp on Tue, Dec 3, 13 at 10:19

I was at a store (that has now gone out of business) where a jacket was mismarked. When I went to buy it, the cashier said she couldn't sell it to me for that price, that it was a mistake. I told her I was sure the store had to sell the item for the price it was marked, but she wouldn't do it. I asked for the manager, and the manager also wouldn't sell it to me for the price it was marked. She said it was a mistake. Pffffft...I never shopped there again.