those jiffy peat pots are notorious for containing active cobweb mold spores just waiting to get wet to start colonizing the pellet. Take some H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide) and mix it with water at a ratio of about 3 parts H20 to 1 part H2O2 and give the mold a couple direct shots. You'll want to mix this up fresh every time because H2O2 breaks down into water when exposed to light - now you know why the bottles are always brown... ;-p As a fungus, cobweb mold is a very fast colonizer and will "lock-up" a substrate (your peat moss) in no time flat and your plants are literally drowning inside the moldy peat moss because the gas exchange has come to a standstill inside your little pots. --- If you're plants down bounce back after that you'll have to either chaulk them up as a lost cause or - if you're really dedicated - you break them out of hte pots, remove as much "dirt" as you can from their roots and dip their roots directly in full-strength H2O2 and then planting them in a new medium. But unless you're dealing with some really exotic plant that's a real pain to germinate from seed (i.e. gerbera daisies) I wouldn't go through the hassle. Considering seeds are only a couple dollars each, you have to weight the effort .vs. the opportunity cost of just starting over. <shrug> I should go back to school for mycology, heh.

This year for the first time I put a ripped hunk of cotton blue jean material into a compost pile. Mostly as a curiousity, to see how long it takes to rot. Sometimes you just can't even use stuff as rags, it is so worn out. Don't know how nutritious it is, but that was one of the first really startling things I learned on gardenweb, that you can compost cotton clothing! Just something most people wouldn't think of on their own. Read a great paraphrased line in a book today, "Some are born weird, some achieve it, others have weirdness thrust upon them." Describes us here pretty well, doesn't it? (Quote from Dick Francis.) Speaking of weird: Blutranes, I wish you wouldn't, every year or so, tell me that I am compromising the health of my family by not buying organic soil amendments and hence having faulty nutrition. Then when I ask about it, you say, oh, you are organic, I don't want to argue with you. If you are going to make such BIZARRE claims about the health of my family related to eating our organic produce, then I expect some facts in return. I am a smart person, and I used to teach chemistry, physics, math, and computer science. I have both a B.S. and an M.S. from a college of engineering, so you are free to use big words in your explanation. I assure you that I will understand any actual facts and data. Marcia

Hi Mike, Dont buy the oxypetalum. I am sending you a few pieces of this one. It is true that they grow like crazy. I left this one at my parents house when I moved out because it does take a tremendous amount of space. I got a call from my mom and she told me that she was waiting for the day that that was going to strangle her..LOL. Once you have an established cutting, you can expect some new growths to be a couple feet long. No joke, mine had some growths that were 4 ft long in one summer!! The blooms are great! Just make sure your going to be home to enjoy them! Mine only lasted one night and that was it. As soon as the sun went down, the bud would begin to open. By the time the sun came up, it was closing. Logees describes it as having flowers the size of dinner plates. I had some that were even larger than that!!! Mine is pitifull now compared to when it was in its glory. I wished I would have found a way to care for it here. At one point, that plant was around 10ft long but I have had it for over 10 years. You can control the growth with pruning. Just make sure you do it at the right time or you will end up with no blooms. I will have to read up on my notes on this before I can tell you when to prune it. I can send you 3-4 nice cuttings next week with the others if you want okay? I also have a nice big pink epi. I don't know the name of the variety but it is really pretty. Trust me, neither of them will take a lifetime to get blooms from. My oxy bloomed in 1.5-2 years after I got it. I started a couple for friends and the one I gave to my landlords mom bloomed the same year I rooted it! The pink variety I bought locally and they had rooted cuttings with buds on them. I will say that it may take a couple years for those blooms to reach there potential. Andrew

The fire or coals would be built in the removable pan, not the base if it were a brazier, Linda. Yes, flower pots do come in copper and brass even if it is toxic to plants. Ask me how I know, I've run a floral business for quarter of a century. And if it were a cachepot there is no reason for drainage. It's just a decorative place to stick the real pot. Yes, it does look like one of those made in India for export items. They're often meant to be more decorative than functional. We've had this baptismal font discussion on the antique forum before. Most private estates don't have spare fonts tucked away for a rainy day ;-) Most fonts have some sort of religious symbolism on them as well. This is about as secular as it comes. Staci.............we're all just guessing at this point because it's pretty a pretty bizarre (uhm novel) piece. I have seen a couple similar ones online identified as baptismal fonts, but one dealer was honest enough to admit it was for want of a better description and asked if anyone could really identify what it was, to please let them know. It's some sort of artistic piece and may be little more than a stand meant to be used to display something else on....that's why I asked for dimensions.