There are no pet stores here and only one nursery with limited selection. HD has lava rock in large bags and usually I get a bag or 2 when I buy their torn bag pallets. Coir is hard for me to locate. The Houston Garden Center had it but they only have it in the spring or summer so I gotta get it then, they are only about 20 miles away. Perlite only in those little bags and it does have that very annoying habit of floating off so I've given up on it. DE I can get at the local nursery. It has been linked to an increase in lung cancer but that is in workers with chronic exposure. Pumice is not readily available but I pick it up on the beach all the time and will just start saving it for my plants. I can easily pick up a bucket full when the seaweed starts to wash in as it washes in the same time. It is hard to find what works best in each climate. What I grow plants in would kill the same plant if it were grown indoors or with different conditions and vice-versa. Some of the mixes used would require me to water plants 3-4 times per day. I often grow plants in a much richer mix simply because of drying out in summer, then the problem is how to keep them from being too wet when we get weeeks and weeks of rain. I thank everyone for their ideas and suggestions. I'm going to mix up a couple of trial mixes and repot next week. I'm off for 5 days and have to paint the library, caulk the rest of the windows, install a floor in the upstairs kitchen, paint the floor in the downstairs kitchen, get the plumber to hook up the sink and put in gas lines so we have heat in the downstairs, wait on the electrician, continue caulking the outside of the house so it can eventually get painted.....BUT I am going to repot plants and do some gardening to destress in between. The roofers set the house on fire doing Hurricane Ike repairs, took off running, didn't call 911 & haven't been seen since. We're just happy to finally be home. Ya'll stay warm. Tally HO!

Greenhouse plants are not hardened off, even without shade cloth they are not getting enough UV to be ready for full sun. Most of my selling area is out in the open, so I have to harden off my greenhouse grown plants before they get moved in to stock. I mostly grow ands sell cacti and succulents, with a few weird native and xeriscape rarities thrown in, so I am running a specialty line that may not be comparable to the average nursery. But any plant that is meant for outdoor use I try and have pre-hardened before it is sold. However there are times that I do bring plants straight out of the greenhouse and put in stock under a shade awning, when I do, any customer who buys one of those plants is given an info-card on how to harden off plants successfully. Small "shade cloth and bamboo pole kits" are available for those that want to get their plants in the ground right away, without waiting to harden off. Any shade-kits returned in good condition receive a store credit. By making sure that we talk to every customer and be proactive with them, I help them realize why they should keep buying from a small local grower-retailer, rather than picking up half dead "bargains" at one of the local big box stores. When they ask why my plants look so good compared to the" bargains" it is usually easy to make them understand what local grown, in soil designed for our climate (not Southern California where the big box stores import from) means.

Hi WorldOfYardCraft! The size would depend on the particular cherry and the rootstock it is on. I have a Balaton sour cherry on Mazzard trained as a fan. Off hand, I donÂt remember how big it could potentially get, but I will not allow it to get taller than 8Â because thatÂs as high as I can reach on a single step. Ooh! Bad news, sorry! I just Googled on Balaton Cherry and one site does not recommend it for the southern USA, says it wonÂt set buds due to insufficient chill hours and is prone to disease in the warmer climate:/ IÂm sorry to read that! I Googled a little more and found a GardenWeb Post about southern struggles growing sour cherries, so maybe they wonÂt work for you in Zone 10. Sigh:/ I read somewhere that gooseberries will grow in shade, but I have not experience with them. Wishing you more replies. Regards, PoseyPlanter

Howdy Thierry, I agree that [very sadly for us "murcans"] ;0) , most murcan violets don't have any scent at all. And I certainly agree that those Odoratas and Parmas really are top of the list for fragrance, but... If you ever have a lot of Priceana in bloom on a warm day, try smelling a bundle of freshly picked flowers. It's not super strong and it is very different from odorata or Parma, but it's still a pleasant fragrance. Reminds me of honeysuckle or jasmine. Viola canadensis also is always scented for me. And Viola blanda has a little bit too. And just once, when my nose was really starved, I even found some fragrance in a large pile of Viola striata flowers that I was collecting pollen from. I was very surprised at that one -- I'd smelled it many times before and always been disappointed. I sure hope your nose can smell some of these too -- don't give up too easily on the murcans. Thanks for the laughs. Take care, Tom P.S. In case anyone is still wondering what these murcan violets are... Hint: say it 5 times fast -- "a murcan violet, a murcan violet, a murcan violet, a murcan violet, a murcan violet"