one of my best largest healthiest variegated blooming violets collapsed with crown rot when i was away. it was on wick in original soil (not enough perlite). i uppotted it into a pot with a perlite all around to keep it drier back in summer. and it survived like that in 75F for 2 weeks. so i did not think to worry about it.. but now the temps are cooler and it rotted :(. i cut off 6 still healthy leaves and put them in water with some peroxide to disinfect. but after 2 days i see browning of the stem at the tip...i cut off 1/2 inch more and now have only 1/2" stubs left. i finally put them in perlite and dipped in rooting hormone to hopefully stop the rot. i actually never put the leaves in water like that before. so my question is : does the stem naturally brown at the tip when put in water?

I would highly recommend finding and taking care of Stingless bees. I have had three hives for about 5 years here in Thailand, The came and nested in an old speaker i left out on my porch and then in a pile of old plastic tarps i left near the same vacinity. I went to a workshop on taking care of them and learned a bunch about them, The variety we have he likes to make nests in any thing, old hand bags, boxes speakers, they build very quickly and they dontsting and NOR do they bite. Well they can but dont tend to, they will stick in your hair if you collect hoeny so wear a white hat, Bee keeping is good, they wll fly towards black so wear white, Your eyes ears mouth and nse are good places they may try to enter if you put you face in the hive and open the lid to collect honey so a white hat saves bees lives, for if they do bite, it doesnt leave a mark, Now ants bites and they hurt but these guys dont hurt at all, No One dies from Stingless bees, but hundreds die each year from the typical Honey bee, Just upset the queen and you can get swarmed, you have to waer lots of gear and have smokers. With stingless bees we use a water mister to calm them and help them slide off your skin, wear a rain coat to prevent them from sticking to your clothes, when they bite the clothes they dont let go so if you brush them off little heads are left behind and the body gets swept away. The are great local bees for pollination and their honey has been used for thousands of years as medicine by the Mayans. I am a former US PCV who has lived in Thailand for 10 years and i hope to have them in the USA when i return, If you have a green house they are the most perfect pollintors, Where as honey bees die in 3 month as they are too restricted these little bees love it and if they have enough flowers will stay all year round. I am sure the climate in California would be perfect, I hear of some varieties in Brazil that tolerate freezing temps. and. if you let them live in you house and have an access tube to the outside they can live a long time. After about 1 year you can split the hive into two and collect about 750ml of Honey and its a delicious type, more watery then honey bees and should be refirigerated or dehydrated a little to reduce the water to 21% from about 26%, this will prevent fermentation and then can keep a long time in the cabinet. If you find anything about stingless bes please let me know, I am looking and excited to find them.. THey wont affect honey bees at all and they are currently being imported to Japan as greenhouse pollinators, Japan a very strict country has given the ok so i think that they would be fine in the USA, they probably are strong too, and resist many of the diesease the honey bees succumb to. We had honey bees and they all died from a variety of things. But these little guys are just neat to have as a pet and dont sting and they bite is not anything like so many blogs describe it, Well at least the 30 varieties we have in Thailand and i think its similar world wide, Here i have Trigona Pagdeni and hope to get the variety tht live in the logs, they are more tollerante to cooler temps, as they live in thick logs, I think in texas many varieties re the Underground type, They live down deep because the temp is easy to control. But they are hard to convince to live in a hive, the little guys i have love little wooden boxes and if you put them in the right location they will live for years. Just email and ask me anything, Visit my rockshop for more info or email my on ebay at Thairockshop. Thanks and good luck finding them, I want to, I see your post is from 7-8 years ago, did you get honey bees?? How was it?? Any news of Stingless, I called the State apiarist in Virginia and he never heard of stingless bes and said i was mistaken. Well, what does he know, He is the state apiarist, he should know, Only a few varieties of honey bees but over 500-600 varieties of stingless bees. So i think if you look in the southern USA you are bound to find someone. Here is a link that might be useful: ThaiRockshop

Hey dr, I am confused by our ceanothus. I took several 8 inch woody cuttings of all three varieties that we have (concha, skylark, and yankee point) and at first they seemed okay. I put them in moist soil covered with a plastic tent. Well, they all failed after a few weeks but one - one of the conchas - and it still looks as happy as the day I cut it. Which was two months ago, but it hasn't even hinted at roots yet. I have also tried rooting small cuttings of these three. Like 3 inch cuttings without much woodiness in the stem. It's too soon to say whether those will root or not. No attempts to root our manzanita, though we are talking of pruning them and I may put some in water or something to see what happens. Our ribes cuttings looks like they will take hold. As for seeds vs cuttings --- I suspect that when I get the knack of propagating by cutting I will be a convert. In the meantime I really enjoy finding seed pods on some roadside plant, and harvesting the seed. The plant ID process is fun too. Several of the seeds I have are from dried up seed pods on a park specimen of this or that - and I have enjoyed learning the species names of the common plants around here. There is uncertainty about traits breeding true, I suppose, though for some species there seems to be only one variety around so it wouldn't seem to be a concern. Anyway, good talking to you! patty

All I know is that my L. pardalinums haven't bloomed yet, but they were put in a sort of tough situation a couple of years ago. I expect blooms this year or next. My L. parryi got stuck in among Epimediums and other woodland plants in rich clay loam, and it bloomed and thrived. Clearly I have no freakin' clue what I really *should* do, but sometimes, okay fairly frequently, I succeed anyways with the "jam 'em in the ground where they want to go, and divide them now and then" method. Lisa