Oh... Yeah! I was just wondering about your begonias! How fun, you have giant blooms! And bummer, I totally forgot about sending you some cork screw vines... I am so sorry.. I am such a scatter brain. With all the rain they are growing but not very fast. The warm weather the past few days have helped and they are now about 6 feet tall but pretty lame looking! Everything else is doing well, my petunias are pretty sad with all the rain and I am praying I don't get blight because of it. Favorite seedling so far is still my African Daisies, they are huge and full of blooms. My tuberous begonia blooms are almost 8" across, the are incredible! Oh so nice hearing from you and your plants are looking great. One of these days I have to get my pictures all loaded up and share with ya'll. Pray for no more rain! Keriann~

Really trying to find a reason for growing Orchids. Orchid Soup!!!!!! Yummy, now I can understand why you all grow orchids! They look great, they smell great and they make excellent soup! ""Orchid Soup Brings the Scent of Flowers into the Prison Currently all the prisons are devoting themselves in developing unique symbolic features and incorporating local resources found throughout society aiming to localize the features of all the prisons and make contributions. After the establishment of Furniture Hospital, the Prison this year further tried to promote skill trainings through the orchid farms and hand-made soup productions, not only to further develop business operation, but also to give more diversity and artistic features to the Prison. In recent years Orchid in Taiwan shines on the global market, and the orchid grown in Tainan County has rich variety and great quality. Huang, Shun-Ji, the chairperson of the board of Chang Rong Flower Farm, visited the Prison and proposed orchid farming in the Prison. Because orchid farming is an operation of processing with high economic value, the Prison is now given one more opportunity of work. It can be regarded as a win-win situation for Chang Rong Flower Farm and the Prison. ¡§Organic Soap¡¨, on the other hand, is a hand made product with variety of scents, recycled cooking oil from the Kitchen Site of the Prison, and the fragrances extracted from lemongrass, roses, and mint planted by the horticultural squad of the Prison. It not only solves the problem of recycled oil waste, but also encourages integration of gardening works in the process of production and inspires the inmates to develop new products with creative thinking. It is hoped that this product shall become one of the highlighted features of the Prison thus achie"" Get sent (scent.. I made a funny) to jail in Taiwan and you can serve out your time growing Orchids! Oh... they didn't mean soup they meant soap! 2 months to planting time here in sunny Iowa, I am getting restless... :) Here is a link that might be useful: 101 things to do with an Orchid. :)

Hi Karen, IÂm happy for you that your big plants are going to make it! If there was ever a chance for you to recover from plumeria addiction, it will disappear when your own plants bloom for you. ItÂs said there are no ugly cats, but that some are more beautiful than others. This also applies to plumeria. Your nighttime temps are ok for starting cuttings. Water them well the day you plant them and then wait at least a month before watering them again. Place your pots on concrete in order to provide bottom heat; I always used the edge of my driveway at my last house. Rooting may take as long as ninety days. Reds as a group are the most prone to rot; some rainbows are also very rot prone during rooting. Let what you see guide you after the first thirty days. If leaves are developing begin watering lightly and infrequently until leaves are six to ten inches, then start giving lots of water. When they are well rooted you are in the clear; a few varieties have a reputation for being rot prone even in their second year, but once rooted, plumeria are tough plants that can tolerate anything except freezing, standing water, and cold wet feet during dormancy. IÂm using BillÂs bottle method for making a planting cavity in the pot because it makes a lot of sense. I can tell you it provides excellent support for the cuttings until they have roots to hold them in place. Also no soaking wet soil is held in direct contact with the bottom of the cutting while it is rooting, decreasing the odds of rotting. As water vapor evaporates through the perlite and pumice on itÂs way out of the pot, the cutting senses there is water nearby and sends out roots to find it. Philip

I haven't seen the show; will have to find it online because it sounds really over the top. I imagine that they get a rush, and have some obsessive tendencies. susie100-- I used to order coupons online for a small 'clipping' fee, if there were coupons available for items that I buy regularly. If you're looking for a coupon for specific items (or have time to sift through) try ebay. There are also coupon clipping services with a variety of coupons-- search the web for coupon masters and the coupon clippers, that should pull up 2 sites that I've used in the past. I find the small charge (usually 5-10 cents per coupon) to be worth it in exchange for not having to click through a lot of things or print, if I actually use the coupon. I've never been an extreme couponer, because I have no storage and don't have the time/patience to go to multiple stores in one week, and have no interest in buying things I won't use. But I do flip through the coupon circulars and clip coupons for the brands/items that we regularly purchase. When I was more diligent about using coupons on items that are already on sale (my local harris teeter doubles up to 99cents, and every area grocery chain has a policy that allows you to use coupons on items that are on sale that week as long as you're not getting a refund), I had significant savings. My savings were not remotely like the extreme couponing types, but the combination of sales & coupons would often reduce my bill by 30% overall. I tend to forget that I have coupons, though, so mine tend to go unused. Although my harris teeter cash registers process most expired coupons, I feel guilty using coupons after the expiration date so I throw them out; I could save more money if I were willing to try to 'game' the system by using expired coupons, simply by holding onto coupons until they're on sale. We don't eat a lot of 'fake foods,' so most coupons in the circular are for things that I don't buy. It's possible to get coupons for toiletries & staples--- juice, meat, butter, yogurt, eggs, cheese, cereal, rice, broth/soups, pasta, condiments, beans, nuts, sugar, flour, yeast, spices/extracts (baking supply coupons are usually in circulars around the holidays). Those are the coupons that I clip. But I don't think it's possible to use coupons at the level of extreme couponers (i.e. a cart of food for $5) without buying a lot of highly processed junk food. I think that several coupon-users, or a couple 'extreme' couponers frequent my local harris teeter because whenever there's an item on sale with a current coupon that would make it free or almost free, the item is out of stock out by the time I get to the grocery store on the weekend (sales start Wednesday mornings).