Hi Everyone. It has been an "eventful" year since I last posted. I *was* doing quite well up till the point I made the mistake of re-potting the orchids. I picked the correct time to do it etc., etc., etc., -- indeed it was "by the book", and even had my homemade "book" opened throughout the procedure. Long story short: every last one of them DIED, including the one I got to bloom. I swore off orchids for good... that was until I met someone with the Tucson Orchid Society, who connected me with someone else at the TOS, etc., suddenly I found myself a member of the Tucson Orchid Society. I am rebuilding my small collection with the exact same plants that died, and a few new ones including a seedling. One advantage of joining the TOS is they have a "Cat"(tleya) person who is willing to help me next year when it comes time to re-pot my one and only (so-far) orchid ( Blc Chia Lin 'Shinsu #1' AM /JOGA ), and it is in dire need of re-potting!! (I also have a seedling but it is being raised in a joint and protected environment until next year, so it has not been counted... YET!!) This time I will have expert advice as I go through the procedure. Me?!? I suspect it was not so much my technique -- though it very well might have been -- so much as it was the combined shock of the re-potting plus the extreme environment it which it was asked to re-establish itself in. The next time after the re-potting I hope the gentleman will temporarily house the orchid in his greenhouse just long enough until it can re-establish itself. I have one question for Sarah: I am very impressed by her "indoor" greenhouse -- the one with the shelving, and what *appears* to be some type of heavy duty transparent plastic on 3 sides. Is that what I am looking at?!? If so was this some type of do-it-yourself project?!? How much did it cost you to put together?? If commercial, where did you get it from and how much did it cost?? It really is quite impressive. In many ways is similar to a poor man's Wardian Case, which would solve the problem of supplying adequate humidity. I do have one question: Given that I live in a rental unit and the walls are made of Dry Wall, management would frown on mold on their walls -- they frowned on my hanging up sheer curtains on the porch to cut down the the HOT western afternoon sun, so mold on their interior walls is probably a non starter. Still the idea of having a small interior greenhouse shows great promise. I like your design. Has anyone else built an interior Wardian Case aka an interior greenhouse?? What types of problems did you encounter?? For those of us who are renters, have restricted space, or for whatever reason where building an external greenhouse is not possible, the building of an INTERIOR greenhouse / Wardian Case by a window might just be the just the ticket. I have attached to this post the picture of Blc Robert Ferguson 'Florida Sunset' that I got to bloom last year. This was the orchid that you may recall rode the wild Wind Called Mariah... that went flying, then crashed to the floor while in bud, the damage which can be seen in this photo. This will be my third purchase (I almost forgot the seedling, plus I have a raffle winner ). DesertLynx

Having trouble with photobucket? it always skips a few of mine. beautiful blooms today, Love the first one,,JOSHUA SLOCUM that on is so pretty, just love that color and I also like EMPEROR'S CHOICE a lot. its refreshing on this hot day here. upper 90's, feels like 104 today ad I have to go out in it and water again. everything is soo dry. jean

I use Irfanview as my default picture viewer on the computer. Easy to edit pics. I generally upload my daylily pics to Flikr and other pics to Shutterfly [I could do them all to one or another]. Both are free and reliable. Shutterfly puts the pics into albums and you can create photo albums that you can buy. Flickr beautifully displays the pics, which you can put into albums if you want. Flikr is my preferred. Brad

Squirrel, as usual, you're the voice of reason and, btw, my favorite poster here. I understand copywright issues and the like and have no doubt that MSO would pursue blatantly illegal infringements like copying an entire book, a picture here and there - probably not. I've posted a couple of worthless pics here myself and would not have done so if it mattered to me, much less plaster my name all over them - not that they would be worthy of watermarking in the eyes of anyone, including me. FWIW, Google owns Blogger. If those pics were gathered by means of a Google search then I suppose Google is guilty of some kind of crime too. After all, every Google results page is loaded with sponsored links - it's how they make their money. Heck, anyone that has posted a pic here that is not their own is also *guilty* considering the fact that this forum and all of ivillage's other sites are full of sponsored links and advertising - it's how they make their money too. I've seen a lot of beautiful, inspirational pics on this forum and Sqirrelheaven's work is something I always look forward to. But it is still my opinion that I've yet to see one thing that warrants watermarking including my example - which I'm full aware of being very specific. No different than those that voice their opinion of Tuscan, matchy matchy, big clocks, Ashley furniture, mainstream 'cheese' etc. - they're just passive aggressive about it, usually under the guise of being witty and/or an authority of some kind - that's what I consider insulting. Everyone have a great day :-)