Bear, it feels good to have success with orchids that could of died, doesn't it? Great job with yours too. Jodik. You have always had confidence in me and I really appreciate that. I hope to someday have penty so I can share a few with you, ones of course easy to grow outside a greenhouse, and I think the above are one of those:-) Thank you:-) Gary..I can't imagaine a Hurricane down there, but as for the weather, wowowowow! Your orchids must thrive no matter where you put them. Lucky you!:-) Thanks for your positive comments. Thanks all! I'll keep you posted. Mike

Oh my goodness! Hello everyone! So sorry I was delayed:-(. It's been a rough week and thank goodness for you all here and my plants, or I would of slitted my throat. Life stinks at times, but then there is always good things to think of once you get through all the fog and see clrearly again:-0) Kemistry: That is the one scent that I could never explain! There is nothing quite like it and that is why I bought two. I actually use to get them at Logee's and would loose them constantly to disease. But I managed to talk my this nursery into selling unusual stuff and he has managed to pull it off. He is expanding to better things that can only be baought there and his way of thanking me was to give me them:-) If you should ever want one, let me know and I can either get you one or start cuttings. They are sooo easy to root! Rosey, like giving up cigarrettes for some people, those methods won't work for me..lol The only thing that will stop me from wanting to aquire any more is to feel overwhelmed with bugs, and thank goodness I think I know how to avoid them babies! Disease, another issue. I know not to get too much so that there is no room for them to breathe, let alone get light.lol I will always have a soft spot for weak and abused plants. Toni, YES, your fault. Remember when we talked and you said you sinned again? Well, I ran to Lowes that night and wondered if I might find something out of the ordinary, and I did. In fact, I blame Annie too..lol It was her that found some just like mine and encouraged me to get a good deal like she had. I even showed the store her post on getting the same plants for 2:50 and it worked.lol The blad stick I break into very small pieces. It's tree fern and the Hydroton is used for air space. It's great stuff. I can water my orchids all I want without fear of rot. Heck, I'll bet if you started a thread on your own about the new bunch of plants or sins that you have done, everyone will balme you too..lololol Hoping everyone is safe and happy tonight! Mike

I know this is long, Heidi, but I've got personal experience with your situation. To be brief, I'm confident that this tree is not even close to death's door, and would be much better served by fixing the causes of its decline now so it can green up and be much healthier to deal with the stress of repotting next summer. In particular, your ficus was thriving until three months ago, and we know that the decline was caused by low light and poor watering, which means that fixing the root congestion and soil aren't an emergency. To be clear, gardengal is probably right that you could repot now without killing the tree, but because it would be easy to get it green again by correcting the biggest problems now, you would be best off waiting until summer to do major root work and put it in a great growing medium. Then you will be rewarded with a burst of new growth, and you'll soon be pinching growing tips and pruning to control its enthusiastic growth and tell it to fill in all those gaps left by dropped leaves. My experience: I have two smaller roughly five year old ficuses that were completely rootbound and were stuck in a dim corner. I often forgot about watering until leaves started yellowing and dropping, and the I'd fill their tall plastic 'saucers' and left the water there until they stopped soaking it up. In other words, I drowned the roots every time I watered, and maximized the amount of deadly mineral deposits in the soil. Aside from feeble attempts to maintain a few leaves, they had almost stopped growing entirely because their depleted energy reserves made them more vulnerable to attack and only allowed them to put our a few leaves at a time, and most of the buds and leaves that appeared were killed by spider mites. But these are tough plants, so they clung to life for about three years before I finally cared enough to search for answers and found these forums. I immediately started treating the mite infestation, thoroughly flushed the pots (I swear I could hear them sigh with relief), fertilized with a weak solution of Foliage Pro, which has a great ratio of basic nutrients plus all the micronutrients plants need, moved it in front of my best window, which only provides mediocre light, and added bright white (not soft white) 5000k 100W led and cfl bulbs in clamp-on fixtures. Two months later, each branch has about half a dozen new leaves, including some emerging near the stem (a sign that the tree is getting better). It's wonderful to see them getting so green, and I'm already reading up on how to prune them when they get growing again. So Heidi, if I were in your place, I'd start by checking the leaves for spider mites with a bright light and a magnifying glass (they're tiny red dots on the leaves, and you may see little bits of webs on the leaves our branches). Ask about treatment if you find any. Then I'd flush the pot (details below), fertilize with a 3:1:2 ratio fertilizer (miracle gro general purpose granules are easy to find and the right ratio), move it to the best window I had, and put two 100 or brighter led or cfl bulbs in it for 12 hours a day, using a timer. From then on, check soil moisture by pushing a sharpened 3/8" dowel all the way through to the bottom of the pot, and DO NOT WATER until the dowel comes out completely clean and dry (at that point there's still a lot of water inside the soil particles). When that happens, water until about 15% of the water exits the drain holes, let it drain, and then either tilt the pot at 45 degrees for 15-30 minutes after watering to remove excess water, or insert a wick into a drain hole and raise the pot up so the wick won't come in contact with the drained water. You can wait until the surface of the soil is dry to start checking the soil moisture, but after that you should check daily until you have a feel for how long it takes for the poor to dry up. About flushing: flush with lukewarm water, using about ten times the pot's capacity, then give it a weak solution of fertilizer. Use R/O (reverse osmosis) water if possible; water from supermarket water machines are usually $.39 per gallon, and that little pot will maybe need two or three gallons to do the job. My water is hard, so I used R/O water to flush, and because my tap water is hard I use water from my cheap faucet-mounted filter for regular watering. And the reason midsummer is the best time to do something stressful is that 1) ample summer sunlight generates much more energy from the leaves than even a lot of winter sunlight can provide, and 2) the plant is programmed to put energy into new growth in summer, whereas in winter it wants to store it for use in the spring. From several people's experience, including Al (talks), who knows whereof he speaks, if you take two healthy plants and repot one now and one next June, the second will be in better shape next fall than the one you repotted a year earlier. Sorry for my rambling post, and I hope it helps at least a little.

What's the best technique for drying? in sun or away from light? Should I refrigerate or just keep at room temp? Do I plant just like regular purchased seeds or do they need special steps first? Can you explain fermenting, please? Yes, just for me ... I've never really saved seeds before, as I only grow a dozen or so plants a year (mixed tomatoes and peppers) and like to mix it up some, but I wanted to try on these because obviously I don't have more for certain, since I purchased Mint Julep ... which I will be marking as possibly having other seed in the packet.