I looked at it and I don't think I'll bother. Most of what they do, I can do on a spreadsheet just as easily. The feature I really liked was the timeline; but, that is an upgrade along with the number of seeds you plant etc. Also, the site forces you into using a certain format and keeping more information than I want to keep. I really like the variety lookup feature but I really don't like having to set up a stash before I can say I'm using something I have. Just little things, that mean I can't use the features I want without additional baggage.

The jet contrails would not have caused the sudden die off. They are nothing more than what you see coming out of the exhaust from your car on a very cold winter morning. (Well, more like a diesel truck, but still nearly all condensed water vapor), but the cold at the altitudes where the exhaust from the planes is located allows it to spread out and look much more voluminous than it really is. Root diseases are a credible and interesting possibility. I do wonder at the variety of species and similar timing of onset, though. Must have been one huge concentration of disease that suddenly became active or quite a stressor in that area that allowed the diseases to take off. Was there water covering the ground for an extended period before they started dying? My thoughts lean towards some kind of herbicide applied to the trees or possibly their roots. Maybe the trees were sprayed for insects, but herbicide instead of insecticide was used by mistake? Maybe herbicides were sprayed elsewhere in the yard or the next yard over during an inversion and the spray drifted? Maybe a soil sterilant was applied at one time in the past and something changed in the soil chemistry to release old residues (much less likely)?

Patrick: Yes. I keep it in a bathroom so that when I towel dry off, I am staring at that plant all whole time. It seems to love the very humid bathroom conditions. Thanks for all the kind comments and help. I just love this one. When I first bought it, it did not have colors like this at all. So it is all taking me by suprise. Boy can Hoya become addicting based on just leaf shape and colors alone! I hope it flowers too. I think it might, if I keep it in that spot. I was debating if I should summer it outside then bring it in in the fall. But it will get full east sun from now till fall in that window. Hi my dear friend Pug!! Thanks. I can't wait to get more..Hint, hint..;-) Paul: Thnaks again. Mike

Jena, my Perle d’Or did the bud drop thing it’s first year, the whole year. A lot of my roses also had chlorosis, including Perle d’Or, even though they were getting regular Magnesium-sulfate and I was alternating between Miracle Grown and a seaweed fertilizer, all in the hopes of curing them of chlorosis. Mostly it was the Polyanthas and Multifloras that had this problem. Finally I sent in a sample for a soil test. I had plenty of all the minerals and nutrients except for Nitrogen (which I already knew since its obviously devoid of any organics and so I was fertilizing) and absolutely zero Manganese (Mn) detected. Once I put a teaspoon of Manganese Sulfate dissolved in a gallon of water on each rose last fall the chlorosis completely disappeared and Perle d’Or stopped dropping buds. I will now do this once or twice a year; not too often since Mn is a minor nutrient and too much can be toxic. The Miracle grow I was using did have trace Mn, but somehow it wasn’t enough. I wonder if my soil was just binding it up? This just demonstrates that bud drop could be due to lack of an essential nutrient. It might not necessarily be Manganese for you. But since you mention the Kellogg soil might not be that great, I would give it a nice dilute liquid fertilizer once a week and see if it cures it.