My experience with elms is that if one can be killed it is a very rare occurance. What is ulmus glabra? You sure not ulmus parvifolia or ulmus minor? My ulmua parvifolias are not easy to kill, and I have tortured them just to see how much abuse they can take. I have seven total now. Last year I pruned the roots twice on one. I have seen cut tap roots sprout leaves after being only partially buried with dirt in a compost. As to pinching, I pinch mine regularly all summer to keep them from growing too freakish. Elms are fun. They grow so graceful in such a short time.

Ladylotus, you got me really interested in that manure part in the potting medium! Do you use horse or cow manure? When you say aged, how old should it be? Pardon the details, but here where I live it's easy to find horse droppings on walking trails, they are several days old and a bit dried in the sun - this would be probably too fresh, wouldn't it? If I collect these, how do I go about "aging" them? I have been using a bit drier horse apples to fertilize my Cattleyas (orchids) by just adding - sprinkling - dried manure on top of the pine bark, it later gets washed deeper into the substrate. My orchids seemed to be very happy with this "treat". I read about a guy who has been growing Cymbidiums - orchids again - in pure aged horse manure and has been getting outstanding results. Never thought, though, it could benefit Adeniums, as they are presumably desert plants? How do you feed Adeniums with it? Lena

Hello again Lynne, Snowed in in OKC, (2-3") and just came in from potting up more tomato and pepper seedlings in the garage. First a couple of photos of this year's pinched seedlings. I started seed for these on Dec. 20th. the winter solstice. This one is a Sungold variety, If you look closely at the "V" where the side branches grow off the main stem, you will see the suckers have formed all along the main stem, even on the cotyledon leaves. This one is a Betterboy variety and you can see the same along with the new terminal tip just above where it was pinched. Both of these plants were pinched 4 weeks ago. These and others will be potted up deeply into the 4" pots and will be set out in the garden as soon as the weather allows in the next month. Last year was the first time I went all in and pinched all of my indeterminate seedlings and was also the first time I had a couple of transplants with buds on them already. I also followed Dr. Sam Cotner's advice from The Vegetable Book a Texan's Guide to Gardening and only set transplants in about 2" deep. Before I had always planted transplants several inches deep. Here are a couple of photos from last year. This one was taken on June 4th, about 9-10 weeks after transplanting. The white tops of the T-posts are at about 5' high. This one was taken on June 22nd and is a coworker. As you can see the plants have grown into a tomato hedge and are 7' tall, they continued to grow taller then across the tops of each other. Pinching will set your seedlings back about 3-4 weeks and keeping them cool, about 50 degrees if possible will help keep them from getting leggy. While my experiment is by no means scientific, it has made a believer out of me. Last year I took sacks of tomatoes to work every couple of days, gave them to friends and family and had so many for us that they went bad on the kitchen table before we could eat them. If you decide to pinch, I suggest you only pinch a few of each variety you grow and mark them on a map of your garden where they are planted. Also this is for only indeterminate (vining varieties) not determinate (bush varieties). If bush varieties are pinched they will produce less, at best, and might not produce at all. Best of gardening luck to you! Keith

Thanks Gill and Rina :) Gill, I repotted the original big mama jade last night into a larger pot and I did find it's pretty unstable in the mix. I had to water in order for it to settle enough to hold them plant up! Once it dries out I may change the mix out for something with larger grit. I have purchased a couple colours of aquarium gravel for top dressing, may need to add some to big mama's mix. Rina, I have a front yard full of beautiful gravel - we went with a gold mix instead of the plain grey... There's a wealth of top dressing out there HA! Never even thought! Not to mention all the many, many other rocks I collect - Quartz and petrified seashell and wood, also seashells and beach glass ... It's a bit of a joke in my family. Some people can keep their rock collections on a shelf ... Not us, we have a yard full. Now we can top dress with all the pretties.