I'm in the same boat as you. This sans watering thing can get complicated. There's just so much information out there. My mother has the really common sans you see in stores all the time. It is in a glazed, six inch pot about a foot away from a south window. She says she waters hers about every 7 or 14 days. She doesn't keep track strictly. Just when it's dry. It's been growing like crazy over the past two years. I have some sans too. Four types. They have been doing pretty well for me all spring. I have decided to let the soil dry all the way through then wait a few more days, and then water. Right now they are in 3 - 4 inch pots. I have been watering probably every 9 or 10 days. That's only because they're growing right now though. When they go dormant, or stop growing for a time, I will wait until the leaves become slightly wilty or bendy.

A very interesting thread. I see both sides of this story clearer than I see the undertones of color. [g] I have been confused at times about my own ability to work with color. I've brought home a few books from the library on color in the garden to try to bring more clarity about it but I just find it very tedious. I couldn't look at a color chip and tell you what the undertones are, at least I doubt that I could. I will have to try that. So whether a pink is a warm pink or a cool pink...I thought all pink were warm and all blues were cool. :-) On the other hand, I believe I have a good eye for color and I recognize good design and great color schemes. But I couldn't tell you how I do it. I just look at it and I know whether it is good or not. At least to me..lol. When I look at a color combo and think 'how awful', maybe the reason is that there is a clashing undertone, but the reason is irrelevant to me, because if my eye and brain can figure it out together without boring me with the details, I am happy as a clam. lol On the other hand, I find it difficult to create that same good design and great color schemes for my own garden and I believe I have figured out at least a couple of the many reasons that is true. I have to see the colors together to see if they work or not and I have found that to do that while developing a garden is really hard to do. As I have gardened over the past 25 years, I have not gotten out to garden centers as much as I would like to, or to other gardens, so there are many many plants that I have never seen in person let alone color combinations. Choosing by a catalog photo sometimes works but just as often it doesn't. Plus, as someone already pointed out, you buy the plant in the spring to go with a plant that won't be in bloom until August..so how are you going to be certain that the colors will go? You're not. You have to make your best guess. So I end up experimenting a lot and moving things a few times. Then my method shifted to choosing plants that I really just want to have and just love and then I will make a place for it in the garden. If it doesn't work one place then I will move it until it does. Now my enjoyment and satisfaction of my garden is not so color dependent. I do agree with cactus joe and others that the way I perceive color is not always the same as people around me perceive it. My husband has a lavender shirt that he calls blue and we go around about it every time he wears it. [g] . I repeat what mxk3 said that color coordination...which, to me, just means that the colors go together in a pleasing way.....is very important to me. I would rather cut off blooms of a plant that is jarring and upsetting the rest of the harmony of colors than keep looking at the clash. My husband has described the importance I place on color harmony, by saying that if someone wanted to torture me, all they would have to do is make me stay in a room with a bad color combination...lol. A small example of that happened recently...I grow plants from seeds using the winter sowing method, with seeds received in trade sometimes. I traded for the Burgundy gallardia but when it bloomed this year, it wasn't burgundy but red and yellow sitting in the middle of purple coneflower and next to a deep pink rose, it looked horrible to me. I didn't have time to move the plant and replace it, so temporarily, I cut all the flowers off and brought them in the house, where they didn't go with the colors in any rooms of my house and got tossed. [g] cactus joe, I agree, we can only design a garden according to our own vision. I am sure that is what all of us do, is choose colors according to how we perceive them. But as time has gone on, and I realized that others weren't always perceiving them the same way I was, I decided that I really wanted a garden that everyone in my family would enjoy, so I started asking them what they like and asking them to help me choose and it makes me really enjoy my garden much more when I look at a plant that my husband loves or my daughter picked out and thankfully my husband could care less about color. He loves fragrance, so I can make him happy with a fragrant plant of any color and make myself happy with the color. Thankfully, my daughter and I have similar tastes at times and we can usually find something we both like. Then we try to make it all work together by musical plants. :-) Again, my enjoyment and satisfaction is not so color dependent, when my husband notices the fragrance of the Casa Blanca lilies and my daughter is disappointed when one of the roses is finished blooming for the year and when we both go 'yuck' when we look at the red and yellow gallardia next to the purple coneflower. lol But I am a family gardener, creating a family garden and enjoying my own process. I do believe that there are people who have an exceptional talent with color. I think I may have a good sense of color but if I really wanted to design for a living let's say, I would not have the luxury of experimenting but would need to produce a plan that had color harmony to it on the first try. I think I would have to work hard to learn to use my own natural color sense in a more deliberate way. Some people probably are doing that as they go along while I am still relying on my instinct. Perhaps it would be much further developed if I had been able to actually go to gardens frequently and 'see' plants together, which is what my process depends on. So I see that to some gardeners, it may be important to study color theory and try to be more precise in choosing color. Sorry for the long thread...[g] pm2

Any sub-tropical exotic catches my eye, like the Gunnera's, Windmill palms(Trachycarpus fortunei), giant ricepaper plant (Tetrapanax papyrifera 'Steroidal Giant'), the many different species of bamboo, hardy eucalyptus, & the hardy banana (Musa basjoo). Also the other hardy and semi-hardy palms such as the Sabal's, (Jubaea chilensis) Chilean Wine Palm, (Butia capitata)Jelly Palm, (Butia eriospatha) Woolly Jelly Palm, plus a few others that I see around the area. I also find the bright flowers of the hardy Grevillea and Callistemon very eye catching. Of course Chilean Firebush (Embothrium coccineum) during the spring also catches my eye along with the bright blue flowers of the Empress Tree (Paulownia tomentosa) I also like the bright yellow flowers of the Scotsbroom, specially during our dark, rainy, depressing spring days. Those bright yellow flowers are so cheery. Scottsbroom also provides cover and food for one of my favorite birds, the valley quail. If it wasn't for the scottsbroom around Olympia there wouldn't be valley quail. I also like the bright cheery flowers of the butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii). There isn't the range of color, fragance, and time of blooming of any other plant for the northwest. They are very attractive.

well, what I've got now, are little bitty pierced fingers..lol with the new glass I got, I sat down to be nipping away.. some cut nice, some shattered, some embedded itself in my fingers... some I stepped on...bare feet.. I just gotta get used to the idea that this stuff IS NOT nice, when it's being broken. I was so used to a nice vacuumed room and didn't remember that shards don't necessarily stay flat on the floor, when they shoot off in directions, unbecoming of a glass piece. guess it comes with the territory! and...........when nipping glass, I think I got a much better take, on just how much ten pounds is, at a time... and I have over 100 pounds to work with...omg! I'm staying so far away from ebay!!! ;(*_*);