Val, what kind of mulch do you mean? Many things can be used as mulch, some would not be desirable for the medium one plants everything into, for instance hunks of pine bark. Shredded leaves are a mulch I use, but I don't imagine one can buy that. As for putting a layer of peat ON TOP of your beds, I would tell Lilacs and everyone else reading this to not do that under any circumstance! I don't know how it is pre-moistened when you buy it, but I have heard from gardening friends and read numerous times on gardenweb how peat dries out and forms a layer through which water does not penetrate. That is the last thing you would want on top of your garden bed. Peat, if used at all, must be mixed in with other material. After another growing season, hopefully we have told Lilacs enough times that she will be adding to the raised bed after her harvest with leaves, coffee grounds, grass clippings, manure, whatever. By the way, I got two bales of straw free during my late fall gathering of other people's leaves venture. People buy them for decoration and then throw them away after Halloween and Thanksgiving. I live in the country, but I scrounge in a nearby subdivision in a neighboring city. Marcia

Gordon Rowley has published, 1995. Anacampseros, Avonia, Grahamia-A Grower's Handbook. Hull Rd (GB). British Cactus and Succulent Society. 80 pp. I didn't think that A. telephiastrum and A. rufescens were synonyms, but perhaps you have a citation for that (they are reported to have different chromosome numbers, among other features). Rowley has keys, illustrations, but there have been misgivings about his treatment of the genus Anacampseros. Thanks for the great photo-plant-pot! Yale

I get Annie's catalog every year. Seems like everything is $5 bucks for any amount of seed, one seed or 10 seeds. You never get a lot of seeds, and everything in there looks surreal. Most of it only grows in zones 9-11, but there are a few in zone 6. Her stuff is expensive, and beautiful. It's her trip, I'm not judging, it just seems out of touch with reality. I can get thousands of seeds way cheaper. She just seems to find really hard to find plants and sell them at a high price. We grow hard to find plants and sell them at a cheap price. Not knocking it, she just has a better selection. Her prices are high bc of her overhead. We don't use expensive heaters and grow what we can by natural selection and for zone 6 and up. I just don't really want to pay the electric company to grow what Mother Nature can grow if you just pay some attention to it, so somebody's gotta pay for that electric bill, and the hoop houses. I still can't understand why they need to be so high when most people who shop are women and under 5'7". They don't need to be 20' high. Hot air rises, seems silly. Check out Elliot Coleman who grows in Vermont with no lights, no heat, and sells to high-end restaurants in the middle of winter. It's more impressive.

Jef, As a fellow Amazon addict, I feel your pain. The answer is: "not really." There is, but you'll pay out the nose. Pine bark fines are going on Amazon for $11/quart. Offline, I get that at my local chain nursery here in Los Angeles for $3.99/1.5 cubic feet. So that's almost 1/3x the price for 44x more product. Interestingly enough, this product actually looks rather similar in composition to a 5-1-1-1 mix (it has Turface), but again is overpriced: http://www.amazon.com/Eves-Special-Canadian-Perlite-Turface/dp/B00VAQ3RNK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1435781535&sr=8-1&keywords=bonsai+soil+bark. You're anti-mixing (and frankly, I was too) but if you want a quick draining soil, you're going to have to end up amending any bagged product regardless. That Eve's mix product looks surprisingly good, though if I were you, I'd pick up some potting mix from whichever nursery is nearest you in NYC, along with some fine-grade orchid bark (any nursery will have this in stock) and perlite.