OK, here's a copy and paste from a post I made back in July to a post started by Miss Sherry about holding willow cuttings. This one was more for collecting cuttings distant from your property and how to get them home fresh, but the technique is the same for cuttings from your own property. . "IMO putting cut LFP in water like cut flowers is not a good technique to use for LFP's and can actually start breaking down the plant rather than helping it. I've posted before on the method I used for many years to keep cut LFP's fresh, often for weeks in the dead of summer and at the end of season even for months. Takes a little work on your part, but robust healthy cats are the reward. If the collection site is a long ways away, take an ice chest with the layer of ice on the bottom covered by a common bath towel folded to a couple of thicknesses for the return trip home (to keep the ice from freezing the plant). Take a supply of trash bags. I mostly used the 7 and 15 gallon kitchen size in opaque white as they store easily and you can see what plant is in them without opening them. Also a supply of paper towel and a squirt bottle filled with clean water. When you gather the cuttings cut the stem with an oblique cut at a length that will fit in the bags unfolded, stack them all together, put them in the trash bags and spray the entire "batch" with the spray bottle. Pour any excess water out, twist or tie the ends and lay them in your ice box until your batches fill it to the top. The paper toweling is in case you have a long trip home. In that case fold and wrap pieces of toweling around the cut end of the bracnhes and soak them with the spray bottle before you put them in the bag and before the final spraying. When I got them home I unpacked and thoroughly washed the cuttings to get any contaminants, pests or predators off them, either in a large sink full of cool water or outside with a garden hose, shook the excess water off and repacked them in trash bags for keeping on the bottom shelf of a refrigerator. If some will be longer term storage wrap their ends with paper towel before spraying. If you make several small "batches" up, and use just one at a time, they others will stay fresh as the day cut with maybe an occasional light spraying every few days. Plant can desiccate or mold in a refrigerator, so the regulation of moisture is important (lean towards less rather than more and just check them more often). In use only pull out enough plant at a time for one change in your cages (I always gave my cats fresh plant at least once a day, more often if they ate it sooner). Close and put the rest of the batch back in cool storage. If the cutting is too long for the cage, cut them in half and use both halves (always putting the down end down). And strip the bottom leaves so only the bottom inch or two is in water. Once you have a feel for what your cats need you can give them only as much plant as they'll consume say 75% of in a day, and that will stretch your cuttings as far as possible before you have to make another trip for plant. Some species of plant hold up better than others, and usually current growth holds up better than old growth. BTW, the wet paper towel trick works very well for small cuttings just laid in containers too, say for early instar larva not yet ready to go to a larger rearing container. Keeps the cutting fresh all day and adds more than enough humidity for the cats. Obviously if you can get your cuttings on your own property they can be gathered, washed and processed daily, but it's still easier to make up a batch all at once to work from until it's used up." . I'll add that for storage I always wrapped cut stems with strips of paper towel and soaked the towel before putting the cuttings in the bag and lightly spraying them for cold storage, even those in my small "batches" that I fed daily from. Takes little effort and adds great benefit in helping the cuttings hold up longer, especially those with woody stems. If you need to hold the plant for many weeks/months, it's a good idea to take all of your plants out, wash them again and repack in new bags every few weeks. My method worked so well that I often held fresh plant well into the deep snow winter months for species that I was rearing successive generations of. I could even hold some plants (like Populus fremontii water sprouts) all winter this way. Larry

Hi, Gorgi: I absolutely agree with what you said. Fig has a perfect taste just after pickup from trees. I eat a lot at home. But pitifully there is no figs for sale here. WuHan is a city between shenzhen and weihai. A hot city. The speciment you got is quite different from those grown in my hometown which are completely green skin and red flowers inside. Hopefully you can see it by the link below. http://images.google.cn/imglanding?imgurl=http://www.sharechn.com/SharechnPhoto/Other/10/4/3/6443x4.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sharechn.com/zone/weihai_5_13_4311_Info.html&usg=__SHnYrIRF40CN9KYijeupPpMVi44%3D&h=426&w=400&sz=22&hl=zh-CN&tbnid=7ae5UalpBon6FM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%25E6%25B8%25AF%25E8%25A5%25BF%25E6%2597%25A0%25E8%258A%25B1%25E6%259E%259C%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dzh-CN%26newwindow%3D1&q=%E6%B8%AF%E8%A5%BF%E6%97%A0%E8%8A%B1%E6%9E%9C&gbv=2&newwindow=1&start=1#start=5

Mmontina, I like the light colour of your sans but it's no 'Moomshine'. It is a Sansevieria trifasciata Futura of some type. I have a Silver Laurenttii and when it pups, they look exactly like Moonshine until it gets a little bigger then the yellow margins show up. They get big and darken with age. Now my Moonshine and I have plenty. Stush

shee, just mixing CS in a spray bottle with water makes a pretty good stain remover. I mix a single green scoop in either a small (hair size) or large (household size) spray bottle. I use really hot water so it will dissolve readily. And shake it really well, too. It's a good pre-treatment for laundry. Denims that are particularly grubby I've sprayed it on and let it sit overnight, then wash in CS as normal. It also does wonders if boots have dripped on car upholstery in winter and left dark stains from slush. I could never get that stuff out, no matter what I tried. I just spray it on upholstery stains (but stop short of saturating it), gently rub with a damp towel, maybe let it sit for a couple minutes and blot with a clean, damp towel. Sometimes it takes a repeat, but it does a really good job on car upholstery and carpet or rug stains. I've added white vinegar to the rinse cycle in the past. My mom used to use it sometimes, I sort of followed her lead. It's supposed to cut soap & fabric softener residue build-up in clothes. I don't do it nearly as often since switching to Charlie's soap. Mostly towels, and this reminds me it wouldn't hurt to do them again. I would watch the machine, and when it was going into the rinse cycle I would add maybe a 1/2 cup or so. I would just put my hand in the tub & swish it around so it got evenly distributed in the water. Then close the lid and let the machine finish. If I was doing a load that had to have fabric softener, I'd do two rinses. First one with fabric softener like normal, then the second with just the vinegar and water.