Good questions Brady. I will only comment on what I have observed with my plants in my area because I haven't been doing this long enough to say what's right or wrong. Im defiantly still in the learning curve with my plants. With Rabbiteyes I think there are a few things to consider. I live right next to the gulf of mexico, with in 1 mile of Galveston Bay. Needless to say its very humid here in a normal year. Add a very wet spring on top of that and leaf fungus becomes a issue with the spring flush of growth. My limited experience with them has shown me they are more sensitive than SHB to really humid/rainy conditions when it comes to leaf fungus and premature leaf drop. I saw this last spring. In a dryer environment it's probably not a big deal? Can't say cause I don't live in a dry environment. Because of that I tend to prune to keep the center of the bush open which seemed to help with my fungus issue. Also some varieties of Rabbiteyes can get very tall and I'm not crazy about breaking out a ladder to pick fruit. What I've doin the past 2 years is after harvest I cut the fruiting canes back to about four feet. By the end of the season they are right back to 7ft or so when they stop growing. Perfect for picking I'm my mind. Now some varieties are more up right while some are more spreading so prune accordingly. Also in late winter I will do a light prune to thin fruit buds on the tips of branches. I dont know if I even need to do this as I obviously thin next years crop by topping back the plants at 4ft but I do it any way. I leave 5 to 6 fruit buds but I may really be shorting my self on fruit. Maybe some one can correct me here? I do know that berry size has not been a problem. They are very large so far. Chill hours have also been a concern for me here with Rabbiteyes. From looking at a chill hour chart for my area we only received 180 or so chill hours in 2011-2012. For some reason it didn't seem to effect any of my Rabbiteyes negatively. They all fruited and leafed out fine. This year I'm showing 250 or so chill hours so it should be a good year for them if the past holds true. All mine fall in the 300-450 chill requirement. Maybe excessive pruning is keeping them fruiting and growing???? I don't know,,,, I would think lack of chill hours would keep them from fruiting and leafing out but I haven't seen that yet??? SHB are a little different. Now keep in mind I'm growing all my SHB in pots with the exception of one Emerald. I can tell you this, the one Emerald in my raised bed is massive compared to my potted plants. It's actually wider, just as tall and much more impressive than my rabbiteyes! Now with SHB it's all about controlling crop load as a over producing plant can bring on unwanted disease. Stem blight is bad one that can kill a plant in a matter of months. How much fruit is too much??? Don't know and don't want to find out. I'm not in it to push a plant, I'm in it to feed my 3 boys home grown organic goodness! I have pretty much followed Fruitnuts and Bams advice on pruning them. Prune heavy after harvest and a light bud pruning in late Jan before the buds break to control crop load. I've gone with 5-6 fruit buds on all the major branches. All small thin branches or weak shoots that spout in the fall get pruned out in Jan. So far so good. I haven't had leaf fungus problems on them like the rabbiteyes, at least not yet. I do tend to prune with more of a open center though with SHB also just in case. Keep in mind I tend to over kill everything so take my post with a grain of salt. I try to be as proactive as possible rather than reactive and that's probably helped me more to this point than anything.

wi-sailorgirl is right: I didn't get much feedback on this topic a few months back, but still do a search of the archives for a few comments you may find helpful. I had decided I like the look of the Runtal Solea the best, and because it draws a lot more power, it could put out a lot more heat. In the end, we decided not to spend the nearly $800 the Runtal would have cost (plus more for the timer), and instead chose to spend just over $300 going with a unit this web site for some odd reason blocks because it considers it spam "Warmlee" (with a "y" instead of "ee") Yours (which I'll refer to as "WY" for the rest of this message) Infinity towel warmer for just over $300. It doesn't have the arc that the Runtal did, but our space was tight, and the flat "WY" probably made more sense. It doesn't draw as much power, which means it doesn't put out as much heat -- but we didn't need it to provide significant supplementary heat to the room, as the Runtal could. But it was really a price decision that we through we could be happy enough with the "WY" for less than half the cost. All I can say for sure is that the Warmly Yours looks great and works well. I have to imagine that the Runtal could make your towel smokin' hot, while the "WY" gets them nicely warm. By the way, if anyone is thinking of buying a "WY" Infinity hardwired towel warmer, when I checked their web site to get the link below, I noticed that they are having a one-day sale on Black Friday which brings the unit down to $299, with free shipping. (I have no affiliation with this company, and I'm not posting spam; I'm just a satisfied, bona fide customer trying to help answer a forum member's question.) -- Eric Here is a link that might be useful: Infinity towel warmer

I think I too would enjoy those higher wet forests, Mike. Although western red cedar is one of my faves, those atolls must be almost indescribably beautiful. My one son, the same guy that spent some time On POW Island, also lived in a town near Olympia for a while and he has recounted many stories of much magnificence in that area. We hope to visit some day. What I find amazing is the overwhelming similarity of "old growth" areas even though they be separated by a thousand miles. Heck, right in my own woods, deep in the swamp area, there are numerous springs with water gurggling all winter long, which is saying something in a place with as cold of winters as we get here. There is almost no "ground" to speak of, only hummocks of old rotted logs and stumps and root systems of still-living trees. There are northern white cedar tipped horizontally by the wind, which, having still a bit of root attachment to terra firma, now have a series of "trees" growing skyward, each one a former branch. There are very large paper birch, much larger than they ever become in suburbia, which, having sprouted right tight against one of the cedars, now continue to grow as a double unit, the trunks of one actually growing around and encapsulating the other. You just don't see stuff like that unless it's been left alone for a long time. Now what was this thread about, lol? +om ps.............oh, and my apologies to Resin and any other sticklers for proper nomenclature. I'm in that camp myself, but "cedar" is all you'll ever hear anyone, including pro foresters call the Thuja growing here. No, I'm not talking about formal report writing, etc. Just general speech....everybody calls Thuja occidentalis "cedar" around these parts. And while I knew many decades ago that that was not proper, if the purpose of language is to communicate with another individual or group, that's the word that's going to get used, exceptions noted.

I bought a warmer from Michael's which has the base and a removable bowl. I use scented jar candles on it, which will last for a long time, or the little wax cubes or votive style scented candles in the bowl. I have a couple of small glass custard cups that I also use, so that I can switch scents without cleaning the bowl. I will also add drops of the scented oils that were/are meant for potpourri or lightbulb rings to melted wax when the original scent is gone. I rarely keep it on for a whole day -- a little goes a long way with me, so I don't mind inexpensive melts that are good only for several hours. When it is time to clean the bowls, I just put the bowl into the freezer for a short time, then the wax pops right out. I have a neighbor who take the used wax to make her own candles. I actually like very few scents - I really don't like most florals, and many others are too artificial to me (like, "clean linen", or "fresh water" . My favorites are fresh apple (not apple pie), and balsam/pine. I like grapefruit, pear, lemon (if it is not too strong or artificial), gingerbread and some pumpkin spice scents. I usually find a Christmas blend at Macy's that I like, too. I'm fond of the Woodwick candles' Jolly Gingerbread and Cinnamon Cheer. Crabtree & Evelyn used to have a scent called "American Harvest" that I loved. I would be so happy if someone would make a "fresh quince" scent that really smelled like a fresh, cut quince.