Ornithogalums??? Oh vetivert, you are bad, but Ornithogalum is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of spring chores and getting to work outside, usually in late Feb. Now I realize my question could have and should have been phrased a lot better. How about this? If the Bulb Forum members would submit their (own) pics of plants and blooms grown from bulbs for a new forum picture, what should it be? . Should it be open to anything grown from bulbs? Should it maybe exclude such things that have more 'specific' forums of their own, such as Lily, Tropical, and House Plant? Should it be an individual bloom, or as you suggested, maybe a still life flower arrangement of numerous delectable blooms grown from bulbs? Please 'scuse me for just having tunnel vision and tunnel thoughts of just Daffodils. At any rate, the folks who are having their spring now, can hopefully be trying to get some great pics. Ok...so when does anyone think we could/should start taking picture submissions? Should we wait until late 2010 so glads could be included by those in the US who grow them? Should we wait a full year (or nearly) so the members down under have an opportunity to have another summer blooming season, like for glads? hmmm...what is fairest? I guess before proceeding, I should check with the 'Powers that be' to see for sure if they would be willing to get the pic changed and updated with a pretty pic of our choosing. I hope lots of folks will give their input and in time, post their pics for entry. In doing a search here on the forum, it seems that Tulips and Daffs are the 2 things most often posted about. I imagine though that tulips are most frequently asked about, due to them having problems, or emerging early, or for not blooming a second season when they are thought to be perennials like daffodils. Here is a spring 2009 pic of a bouquet of Daffodil Show rejects. Hopefully in 2010, I can put together a much better arrangement and pic. Sue...hoping/planning to start daff planting today...maybe

Would like to share progress on a 1 1/2 and 1 inch cuttings I planted... so far they are doing great, they are not tip cuttings so it's harder to root on my opinion... and the leaf nodes are starting to swell so that may be the beginning of branch growth... Here is the 1 1/2 inch cutting

I have a HP Photosmart printer that has the seperate color ink tanks. I really like it. Photo's do not fade. I have had some that have been on the fridge for a couple years and look great. Someone printed a picture on a Canon photo printer for me - and it looked very faded in just a couple months! I can buy my ink on eBay far cheaper than from the store. I only use genuine HP tanks - I never refill them either. My printer will continue to print in b/w if I run out of a color. I like the seperate tanks - as sometimes I use more reds or blues, depending on what I am printing. I can just replace those tanks as needed. I think Lexmark printers are junk! I would consider those disposable printers. You CAN buy one cheaper than replacing the inks, LoL :) I don't recommend all-in-ones, unless you are really short on space.

Last August I moved from Ohio to Massachusetts. Jan & I planned on taking about 3 weeks for the trip so we could get in some sightseeing photo time on the way. For the trip I packed my computer tower, 3 DSLR's and about 8 lenses plus an assortment of other odds & end. The remainder of my equipment was packed and shipped with an anticipated delivery date of 4 to 6 week. For my photo business I usually deliver the end item in digital format on a memory card or I have prints made through Adorama but I did need a new monitor for my computer so about a day after arriving in Massachusetts Jan and I went to Staples and got a nice flat screen(I had been using one of the old desktop boat anchors..LOL). Jan is just a beginner at photography and she said she wanter to get a photo printer for her computer, so we looked around to see what our options were. One a display in the isle they had the Kodak ESP 7250 All-in-one on sale. Normal list for the wireless model $129 and the hard wire model $99 less 25% for the next 2 days. I didn't know a thing about Kodak printers but in my mind it had three things going for it. 1.It was the cheapest printer in the store, 2. It is advertised at using the cheapest ink, 3. Would Kodak put their name on a photo printer that doesn't do a descent job of printing photos? When I got it home rather than mess with a detailed Wifi setup I just plugged in a USB cable from the printer to my router. Inserted the setup disc and sat back. Within moments I was watching a setup video that said it was all set up and went on to explain the features. Two paper trays. The top tray will handle up to 5x7 photo paper or business envenlopes and the bottom tray handles up to 8.5x11 legal size bond or photo paper. When your printing photos it will ask you which size you want and select the paper automatically. I had a pack of 8x10 generic photo paper so I loaded a sheet, went to my pictures and pulled up a photo then hit print. A couple clicks as it loaded the paper then it went silent. "What is wrong" I thought? About 10 to 15 seconds later I got my answer. nothing wrong, it just prints so quiet you can't hear it running till the finished print pops out. I then checked the print, and to say I was not happy would be an understatement. I can only eplain it in one word...trash. The print had way too much ink, was still wet and actually smeared when I touched it then the thought hit me, those are new ink catridges and usually you have to run a test print to set up the print heads. I checked the book, and sure enough, there is an easy test print to run, but I found something even more interesting. You only need to run the test print if you use non-Kodak photo paper. So here is the catch I thought. All genuine Kodak photopaper has a bar code printed on the back of the paper that tells the printers processor how to set the print head for that piece of paper. This means you can easily switch from gloss to semi-gloss or matt without changing the setup, but how much does genuine Kodak paper cost? To my complete surprise, while Kodak Paper is a bit high in Staples, at WalMart it is the same or cheaper than HP photo paper. When I began running prints on genuine Kodak paper I could not believe my eyes. The prints look better than those that we had printed at Walmarts 1hr service. To get a good test of the prints I selected 6 photos and put them on a memory card, then I printed them on this machine. I then took the memory card to 4 different 1hr photo service places around town and had them printed again, being careful to mark the back of the photos to know where they were printed. I then took all the photos to the photoclub meeting at our senior center and spread them on a table and asked everyone to select which they thought looked the best. Over 90% of the people who participated selected the prints from this printer. The printer also has built in memory card readers so it can be used as a stand alone printer, and the Wifi model will work directly from Ipods & Cell phones. Would I recommend this printer? Absolutely YES. in fact since I bought this one over half the people in our photo club have also bought one. I primarily use 4x6 paper, which is $7.00 per 100sheet for brilliant glossy white at Walmart. I have not priced the ink at Walmart but at Staples the ink is $19.89 for the color and $9.98 for the Black, but staples also gives a $2 rebate for any used cartridge you turn in. (Up to 10 empties per month). I just found a website this morning for cheaper ink cartridges for almost all printers. Thru the site I can get color cartidges for this printer for $9.98 www.inkjetSuperstore.com