Bob... I would love to have some of these cuttings. I have a lot of "un-named" cacti pups/succulents I could trade or would be willing to pay postage. NCCactusLady@gmail.com Nancy

Hey Keiko. Congratulations on your cuttings! Do you have any further details on which rigida you've got there? The cuttings look great!! I don't have much time so I'm going to make this short. But I wanted to post quick in case you're still reading tonight. Yes, you need a node to be at least at the surface level of the medium. It doesn't have to be completely buried but it needs to be in contact with the medium. If there's too much stem underneath the node you can trim it, or just sort of bend it in the pot, or even lay the portion that is above surface level horizontally along the soil, weighting it with stones. Anything to provide node contact. Although un-useful to you, it isn't very unusual to receive a long segment underneath the node. It's because when the grower is harvesting the cuttings, they make their cut right above a node, b/c anything vine stub above it is going to die off anyway. So you get that segment, however long it is. Good luck and happy rooting! :) And to answer your question, I usually root mine right in the medium I plan to use long-term. But for valuable or delicate cuttings, I often root them semi-hydro style. When possible, I like to lay multiple nodes along the surface. Otherwise I'll cut the cutting up into smaller segments and root several starts. Really, I don't have a system I stick to every time. I just use my gut and do what feels right for that particular cutting. :) I like to experiment and test theories with every batch. Also, I tend to use a rooting aquarium or even a clear tupperware bin, to provide extra humidity, but I don't like the bag method because I screwed it up once (by putting the plants next to a bright window and baking them) and have bad associations with the innocent bags. This time of year though, I don't bother. Hoyas like to root right now. I have a few re-rooting at the moment and I just stuck them in the soil. They'd better root >:O Whoa this didn't turn out short. But it was fast! So if I said anything crazy, just ignore it. Bye!

That would be a great (and large) topic! We have discussed such matters here before, although I'm not sure one could find that single all-encompassing thread. This really gets to the heart of the matter though-who is the target consumer (man I hate that word), who is this thing being grown for, and for what purpose. My own view is that within the confines of the commercial, landscape end of things, many unwise and unhelpful things are done to trees purely for economic reasons, the public having been trained to expect the trees to look a certain way. Ken's mention of whips is a good example. Whips in the wholesale nursery trade literally look like sticks to most people. They for whatever reason have simply never seen how a young tree starts out-all energy being devoted to height increment. These organisms evolved in the company of one another, in a plant community we call forest. Typically, a forest starts following some land-clearing event-forest fire, windstorm, logging operation...and all the trees start out at roughly the same time. Competition is fierce. The only useful thing for each little tree to do is to grow upwards, racing for the sun. A huge percentage of these don't make it to maturity. All the slowpokes end up getting shaded out by the more vigorous stems, leaving the runts behind. If you're at all in forested country, try to find a stand that has been clearcut in the last five years. "You think the hair on your dog's back is thick! And these are all saplings...or "whips" if this were a commercial operation. Branches come later.

Wait a minute, I always heard that it was bad luck to take the tree and such down BEFORE the new year! I still hear that! Whenever I take my decor at work down before new years I am told that and roundly scolded for it by many random people! Weird. Either way its untrue,so no matter. I take mine down whenever I feel like it. My work decor I may take down on Christmas night if I am working,which I am this year. I might leave it up until after new years. It's such a sad and depressing task that some years I just want to get it over with so I can sulk,and some years I want to be stubborn and leave it up until it truly is no longer reasonable. No one helps me so no one says anything. Not to me anyway. No doubt they discuss it amongst themselves. At home it varies as well. Last year i took all the lights and stuff off the tree around the 1st but I kept the tree for a while. It was a tiny real tree, like I have this year. I just kept it watered until it was clear that it was dying and then I just picked it up and threw it in the woods. It was after Valentine's day...