Good question, but it's a moral one rather than gardening. Surely you're not the first Buddhist to encounter a pest animal, you should pose the question to a trusted Buddhist teacher. Oh indeed, this is a dilemma that has hit practically every Buddhist at one time or another, to be sure. And I'll be honest, the answers are varied... Realistically, each must decide for themselves, because each person is uniquely and totally responsible for themselves. I choose for example to kill flies, mosquitoes and ticks, because the consequences of not doing so, carry more immediate potentially perilous outcomes. But the mouse was 'humanely' transferred. I researched what to do, and did as one site suggested, and relocated it over a 5-day period...(It took that long, but could have taken more. Or less, even.) I put the cage where it was highly unlikely to be disturbed by anyone. I covered it with small twigs, branches and leaves, and placed food and water and nesting material within the cage. Then, on day 2, I propped the door open, just enough to let the occupant in and out, and still fed/watered the mouse. For 2 more days, it didn't leave the cage. Then, on day 4, it ventured forth, because there was bedding, faeces and food OUTSIDE the cage - but the mouse was still there. I placed some food outside the cage, that evening. The next day, the bedding was all outside the cage. There was some food and faeces there, but no sign of the mouse. I sat down and waited for what must have been a half-hour, and I was about to give up and go home, when Junior appeared, grabbed three peanuts, and ate them. Then scurried off again. I took the cage, placed a bit more food on the ground and left. Junior was alive, and well, and on his own. Practically speaking, you can live with the infestation, or make the area unappealing(scents, remove food sources, etc). You are of course, absolutely right. It's important to create the type of environment that discourages any unwelcome visitors. And that's a precaution we all have to take. If you avoid the problem, you can therefore avoid having to make such decisions.... Make no mistake though, dropping a confused animal into an foreign environment is not a humane action. Regardless of your geographical local, almost all animals maintain and defend a home territory. Also there are a number of diseases you could be spreading by moving wildlife. Yes, I fully appreciate the sense of what you are saying. History is littered with incidents of human beings altering the balance of the local ecology, by introducing animals that shouldn't be there in the first place. I realise it's inadvisable and unwise. I can only hope I didn't tip the balance. And I am being serious. I'm not taking what you say, in either a light or facetious manner. Don't feel bad though, you're obviously a kind soul who approached the situation in a caring way. Thank you. But I'm aware and conscious that 'caring' doesn't mean 'Right'. I just did what I thought was right at the time... I'm a lover of all creatures and once thought relocation was the best way, but then I really thought about what awaits the transplant I changed my opinion. For what is worth, I'd rather a guillotine over a desert banishment, but the occasional killing of a pest doesn't conflict with my own moral code. My own personal moral code hinges on what I consider to be 'sentient'... I don't think insects are sentient. I think creatures in higher orders are.... And I'm not trying to move the goal-posts here... I know of a Buddhist Monastery in the USA once a school, (housed in a relatively old building) that had been turned into a temple and a place of retreat for visitors and 'followers'. Unfortunately, it encountered an infestation of cockroaches which the monks at first tried to live with and 'embrace' (in the sense of little visitors who had come to stay). But unfortunately, the number of cockroaches increased dramatically, and the number of guests, pilgrims and travellers began dwindling. Something had to be done, so the Lama sent off for advice to the Mother Monastery in Nepal. The decision to call in the exterminators was reached after much thought and consideration. It was, for them, a heart-wrenching decision, because they truly felt that killing on such a scale was completely contrary to their ethical and moral rectitude. But they were obliged and forced by circumstances (hygiene, cleanliness, the need to continue functioning as a viable premise) to do what they had to do....

People didn't generally allow fear of what might happen to control their lives. Kids carried pocket knives, teens carried rifles, illness was something you avoided best you could and accepted as part of living. Neighbors resolved issues of bad behavior without calling the police, men protected their families and neighborhoods, everyone's parent became YOUR parent if you misbehaved and, get this, you actually had to win to get a trophy, There were inside voices and outside voices. There were places for adults and places for children. In between places were stores, family restaurants and movies. But any screaming or misbehaving child would immediately be removed. We learned to swim in creeks, lakes and rivers, not pools. At the bakery a child would get a free cookie, at the butcher's or meat dept. a child would be given a hot dog or a thick slice of bologna.

My first reaction is that it's a good fit. There's a lot of cross traffic among some GW members and Houzz. Additionally, social streams are proven ways of keeping people involved with a site after a particular interest has been filled. I'm only guessing, but I'd think Houzz would want the forums, and want to keep them intact for that reason. It's not whether they have cooking, it's whether bringing in the CF to talk about cooking is of complementary interest to the people who frequent Houzz. There's the whole urban foraging movement, and Williams-Sonoma selling Yuppie chicken coops. I'm sure the Harvest Forum will find traction with the backyard-to-table crowd. They'd be best served by leaving clunky old Gardenweb alone. I've said this before, but the format where most recent reply, rather than most recent thread start or most popular is on top, and old threads fall off the bottom, is most conducive to lively and always fresh daily discussions. There's nothing duller than a forum where the members expect a newbie to wade through 3000 pages of past content to "get up to speed" on that which has been discussed before. Each discussion is a little different, and (nearly) each new person each thread attracts has something interesting to add. This past year there must have been half a dozen discussions of how to make spaghetti sauce! How great is that! It's also great that we're mostly self policing, and members feel free to throw in personal news, minor tangents, etc., without having the topic police editing them. Another great thing is all the white space. Jasdip is spot on about the avatars, animated signatures, etc., that choke most message boards nowadays. The good sized and scalable fonts make it easier to read GW as well. Summary: GW is great as is. :) My big question is was GW spun off or was Houzz acquired by NBC?

No, she doesn't mean the crown. She means when a row of larger leaves grows over a row of smaller leaves. Remember, she is preparing plants for show and you don't want many rows of leaves, just a big plant. She said take them off gradually instead of all at once so you didn't have a trunk. I guess I didn't read the part about eBay sellers; however, I remember Fred Hill who was a judge and showed, posting about how he chose his plants. He would go to a show and choose a plant with show potential. It is about the shape and the leaves mostly too. That was my first experience with "show people" and I had no idea they didn't grow theirs. Of course, I also didn't know that Fred was probably dealing with Parkinson's at the time (it goes on for some years - my FIL had it). I just happened to read the memorial for Reinhold Holtkamp Sr. and I hadn't realized that he had it too - nasty condition. I don''t think a lot of eBay sellers bother grooming at all. They get the same money. You can also see that they were crowded. I have seen perfect little plants but sometimes they brought $50 too. To paraphrase Ralph Robinson, you still have to grow 'em. I have Buckeye Seduction and Buckeye Butterflies. I had BB (there, I regressed to my grandfather's spelling book, I guess with Flutterbye :) before and I think it had nicer variegation than this one. They are both okay. Seduction is bigger. I think it is Icebreaker that is a baby yet. I never know what to pick. Cranberry Sparkler is the big show winner but it's reddish. Maybe some day because it's supposed to be so great. Maybe the Chatter won't be so bad once I try it but the older free one I could just download or read online, I believe. They weren't on FB then. Actually you should have seen the pile of leaves I took off plants tonight :) At least some have buds and will bloom. I decided orange crud on the back of one's leaves was unlikely to be INSV and probably meant it had fertilizer issues along the way. Ah, I think that one's friend isn't blooming quite right. It's also spring so I have to watch it with dumping too much water on everything. Well, I suppose I didn't need all of them. Diana