Hi Catherine . Here's some of the information requested. I have fertilized with pond fertilizer but I question weather the tabs are any good (last years) and I did only put 2 in. I haven't a clue about the pots paint but none seems to have leeched off of the pot.There are only 4 floating leaves with the largest being 1 1/2" in diameter and there is a floating "tuber" in there. Pot that plant is actually planted in is about 20" round approx 12" to 15" deep heavy plastic. This came from the greenhouse. As far as the nme of the Lotus all that was marked on it was Medium Dark Pink. I am going to attempt to post a link with a photo. Here is a link that might be useful:

Hi Tamara, there is no right or wrong answer to your question. It all depends upon how quickly you want/need them to reach maturity. If you let them flower, you can more quickly check the accuracy of their identities. So, letting them flower initially, at least once, so you can make sure they are what they are supposed to be, might be of benefit for you. Due to your being in a colder, harsher climate, you may want immature plants to develop faster so they are hardier for winter. Preventing them from expending as much energy flowerig as posible can easily build them into much more developed specimen rather quickly. Usually, the larger, more mature a plant is where weather is harsher and colder, the easier they make it through. Kim

There are several factors that determine how fast your mulch, no matter what is used, will be digested starting with how healthy your soil is. If you have a good, active Soil Food Web they will digest your mulch (provided it is not stone or rubber) fairly quickly, but that then depends on the type of material and wood chips can take longer then would shredded leaves. Thickness is also a factor, because the more there is to digest the longer it will take, but in some of my beds wood chips 4 to 6 inches thick get digested in 2 years. Shredded leaves are an excellent mulch, although in my soil the shredded leaf mulch I applied last fall is now gone leaving the soil now bare and exposed to the ravages of the sun, wind, and rain. There is no need to remove a mulch from a planting bed, unless your soil is in such bad condition that the plants have a difficult time growing. I would put shredded leaves on top of the wood chips. I find that the soil bacteria apparently work on the easier to digest leaves because after spring I see few, if any, leaves and only see the wood chips. Leaves, left whole on grass, can keep the grass from gettng access to the sunlight all plants need to grow so whole leaves could kill the grass they cover. You can mulch mow those leaves into your turf and the soil bacteria will move them into the soil for you feeding your grass so it grows better next year. Joe Vargas turf grass students, back in the 1980's, mulch mowed leaves into a turf plot at MSU and found the grass in that plot (nothing else was done except normal watering) grew greener, thicker, faster than any other grass plot they had.

Melissa, Kalanchoe cuttings root easily - you can use, probably, all three of those methods. I'd place a cutting (dried a few days) slightly into porous soil and mist every few days until growth is evident, when you can begin watering. I don't know specifically what species you have there - it looks kind of like K. blossfeldiana but the growth habit is unusual. Anyway, many Kalanchoes have the growth habit that you describe as a problem. You can cut it back and make a new plant from it. However, that's the way it grows, and while you can contain it, you can't change it, IMO. What you might do is cut it to the base and stick the stalk of leafless trunk back into the soil so that it can root there.