Greg, I have one plant labeled Black Prince from a Cactus nursery and I hope they know their plants (maybe), and one I'm not sure of but looks different. But I assume they both need the same care. When I get my camera out I'll take a side-by-side photo. I live 5 miles inland from the ocean, just at the edge where, if there is fog, the ocean fog ends, or barely covers in the mornings and burns off later, or the fog just doesn't quite get to me by a quarter of a mile or so. So I call it zone 11. The roses just aren't happy about it until summer when it is sunny. This echeveria is in the lath house so it gets some sun. I'm just trying not to kill it.

Thanks, Teatree! :-) Thanks, Sir Andrew, very interesting! By the way, it's good to see you at the Forum again. I bought the Silver Dollar Jade at a local nursery where they're always in stock. I selected the tallest specimen with the most branches, and then I promptly removed a branch. I rooted that cutting for a friend, and then I removed another branch and rooted it for myself. (I like to make duplicates of my plants for insurance purposes). I look forward to the day when my plant has a beautiful peeling golden trunk with new bits of pale green leaves emerging. The following two pics are from when I bought the Silver Dollar Jade (I apologize for the blurriness). And here's how the Silver Dollar looks now. You can see the old scars where I removed the other branches. And you can also see the two new branches growing from lower on the trunk. Since the new branches are growing in the direction I want, I can finally chop the head off this thing and bring it down to size. That top piece is going to make one hell of a cutting. Josh

The Clark Botanical Garden has a big pile of free compost for the public. It's in Albertson, NY (on LI) so it's a bit far from Brooklyn. Maybe you check with closer botanical gardens and see if they offer something similar.

I dug into those three pots yesterday... And I can see how the bigger more robust leaves were choking out the smaller ones. I repotted all of my streps into a makeshift wicking system that will probably make y'all experts laugh, but I only spent a total of $16, and I achieved my goal of creating an easy way to move these streps. so I'm happy. :D I went to dollar General and found two plastic planters that didn't look too cheesy. Then I found some packs of plastic tumblers that are 3" across. I took them home and my husband drilled one big hole in the bottom of each. While he did that, I went outside and gathered small rocks then washed them in blistering hot water. My 5yr old got a kick out of threading each pot with a wick,, filling it half way with gravel/rock and then putting down a piece of fabric cut in a circle, to keep the dirt from settling down into the rocks. I placed these into the planters, and wala! A reservoir, a handy way to carry the streps, and they have MUCH more room than they did before. :) I put them in a south window in my basement, where they get all the sunlight they want, and it's cooler. There's a few extras in the front there that I took off of large parent plants. My Noreen was in a pot by herself with DS Khalahari, and I got at least four pots of plants from her and three from khalahari. :) They look a little wild and wacky right now... But I think they will straighten up soon. I had a brother in law tell me that they look "reptilian". Lol!