eilandkind, I believe Brian ordered his from Rinoa as did myself and many others here. If you send an email to her she will send you her new list of grafted plants. rinoa.ch@gmail.com She is so professional and sends the best plants. Just ask her anything you want and she will answer you thoroughly. Rick

Shrubs ... I'm coming around to the bad ballast theory, even with a F20T12 tube in the unit, I'm getting more noise out of that fixture than from the other seven. Zink ... I'm certainly getting the impression that it really wasn't driving the T8 correctly. In fact, I think something harmful has already happened to the tube just from experimenting. There already seems to be a "burnt spot" in the coating near one end (it isn't actually blackened yet, just a serious discontinuity in the color/brightness) which I don't remember being there earlier. Jkirk ... I'm not attached to that particular fixture, but I'm footprint-limited on my seed-starting space, to a Home Depot style shelf unit that is 36" x 24" exterior and has four plastic tube corner posts, giving me an "interior" free space of 32" x 20". Thus the 4' shoplight solution didn't fit, so I did what I could with multiple "under cabinet" style fixtures. After the fact I realized that those under cabinet units must work on the "razor blade" model ... The unit with included tube are inexpensive (although not compared to best-case shop lights), but then you get killed on replacement tubes. Seems like every 2' tube costs more than a 2-pack of 4' tubes, at least at my local Lowes & Home Depot (and neither currenly has any F20T10s :-( I thought about hacking the existing fixture and switching to an electronic, T8-compatible ballast, but it is all glued/welded plastic. Perhaps with some careful Dremel work I can open it up without destroying any of the important bits. Is it possible to just buy the tube end-mounts and "roll your own" fixture? I saw ballasts at the HD, but didn't see the tube mounts (was a quick trip for the test T8 tube, wasn't looking carefully). If that is possible, how far away from the tubes can the ballasts be? I think I could drop the weight of my light assemblies quite a bit if they were just end-mounts on a frame, reflector and tubes, with the ballast for each shelf's worth of lights mounted on the back edge of the shelf. Jkirk's suggestion in my other post of cutting down a 4' light sort of has me pondering whether I could build from scratch to fit my shelf with less effort/wastage than remodelling an existing light. Of course, that still leaves my in the 2' tube cost swamp. Should I be considering some other strategy (bent tubes, circles) to fit my limited space and drop my tube cost? Thanks for all the help folks ... I can't imagine how much time it would take me to research my way through the knowledge you already have!

Thank you all for your support it means the world to me. I've always been the type to beat myself up for not knowing how to do the things just right. It would not be so bad if dad's mind wasn't clear as a bell right now. His abuse of his medicine is a real concern for me. I got a call from him today saying he needs his antibiotic for his sinus, well he'll only take one or two and he says it cures his sinus. You and I know this isn't so and even if it does help it's short term, taking the antibiotics like that can cause harm but no one can get this through to my dad. I have had so many problems with doctors in my past that I don't trust them easily. It was me that saved my husband from a possible stroke, his blood pressure was high and I could tell when it was up but with the sleep apne he had to take showed how bad it was. They could not get it down all night so I marched into our dr.'s and told them about this and they looked back at his chart and seen that it was high everytime he went in for a check up. Now why don't they pay more attention to this? This is why I fear looking for yet another doctor. I have no luck with them. Only once did I have a wonderful doctor and within a year my insurance changed and he didn't take it :( He was the one that listen to me about my weight and took test finding that my thyroid was bad. I went through years with a sore throat and my throat closing up at night in my sleep, waking up unable to breath for 10 or so seconds but felt longer and didn't know if I'd get my breath. If it's wasn't for y'all I don't know if I'd be able to be strong for my dad. I never knew it could be so hard. I look at pictures of my grandparents, dads parents and talk to them and wishing they were here. They had a hard life and I can just image that they went through just what I am now. They took care of my great grandmother for 17 years then told my grandmothers brother it was time for him to care for his mother and give them a break. Great grandmother was called little granny and I never seen pictures of her but heard great stories about her, I found a picture of her the other day and I'm so happy to finally seen her, she past away a few years before I was born. Sorry for being long winded. Barbara

HA = that's funny "buildinghome". We had zero problems, not one tiny hitch. Yet the home started off at $240K and we kept adding little things. Ended up at $253K. Little things add up. Double the size of the deck, better appliances, better furnace (make sure you get a good furnace and not cheap builders furnace). Upgrade from a cheap Lennox gas fireplace (a true builders box - run away if you can) to a Mendota. Make sure the water heater is not sitting on the floor (rust). Make sure you have a regular door in the garage so you will not have to open the big door all the time. 12x14 foot deck is too small for real use, we doubled the size and because we face south we used wood and not composite with gets REAL hot in summer. If you can get an extra foot of overhang do it. Good for shade and run off. If you are on a hill make sure the garage is on the downhill side of the house. Make sure you have windows on all four sides. I'm surprised to see so many spec homes with no windows in the sides! Wash tub in the laundry room is a must! Outdoor faucets, put them higher up so you do not have to crawl on the ground to hook up the hose. If you are on a budget, get the expensive lights for the living areas and go cheap in the bathrooms and other areas. Then once you get back on your feet buy the good lights for the bathrooms. Paint everything neutral until you see how the light falls in the house. Don't go fancy YET! We would also build in a heartbeat . . . . . if we had too! Here is a link that might be useful: Rod & DJs House Building Adventure