Estelle and Annette - Happy Spring back at ya! Annette - In the boating world, they talk of a condition called two-foot disease. "If my boat was only two feet longer, it would be perfect." Greenhousers probably get it too. Thanks, MeMo, the bags are heat sinks. There are two 5 gallon buckets of water inside each one. I was going to spray paint the buckets black, but Nell suggested wrapping them in garbage bags, since I was afraid the black paint wouldn't stick to the plastic buckets. I don't know if 100 gallons of water is enough to do the job, but I am going to stick a max/min thermometer out there tonight and start monitoring temps. I'm not planning on trying to use the soil inside the greenhouse to grow anything, as there is grass growing there and when I move the greenhouse in the summer, I don't want to step out of my basement door into a garden. :-) I think that there will be a hoop house in my future, depending on how I do with flower sales this year. OK, Patti. Let's get those seeds started! Terryanne, I see that you're in zone 5 too, and I hear you about heating expense. I'm just using my greenhouse, along with lights in my basement, as a plant starting area in the spring. My grandsons do love to go out there and play with their toy tractors in the dirt on a sunny day in the winter. I probably won't do any more than use an electric heater at night if I have to. Thanks for writing, all. ThinMan

It has been my experience that eating the little B*****s scares them, and some of them leave the property.

California poppies. Sigh. I have a self-seeding mixture called "Tequila Sunrise" from Renee's Seeds, a cream colored one and the normal deep orange, they're spectacular. They also, planted among the roses, are pushing the envelope between "flower" and "weed". They do amazingly well with good soil and regular moisture. So, I went and bought something like a 1/2 ounce of normal orange seed, and tried to get a whole big border of them. Nada. Zip. Maybe 3 came up. Today I transplanted some of the T. sunrise out into the border, and forgot to water them in, which I had better do pretty quick here.......

In Photo #2 (I should have numbered them, thanks), do you know what the green one is? I'm surprised the two in #3 are the same, however, when looking for a photo of the mom, I found this of the mom and the second one in #3. The ones below are the same mom before it got tired of having babies. I can't imagine the G. ever flowering. It would be fantastic if it ever did. Do you know what I can do to try to get it to grow more? I need to research fertilizer. I don't use much.5. No flowers. Best photo I have is this. I'm afraid it's a goner. I'll look at the roots. But I think you're right about it being a M. duwei after looking at other photos. I will do better in taking care of these. Thank you so much for helping me.