I looked up Victoria Magazine and they have little to offer via the Web. I have a few back issues and they had some neat Victorian decor ideas. Still in print so maybe can get one at a news stand. A family friend lives on a street in town with all Victorian houses and she has her front rooms decorated in Victorian, silk wreaths with tea cups and saucers glued on, roses, pearls and ribbon. Velvet throw pillows, heavy gold tassles on the drapery, heavy gilded framed artwork etc... For a bathroom I think to lighten it up with a pink and gold would be cheerful with lace, pearls and roses. You could use wide upholstry trim for the "crown" molding on the walls. Your moose, bear living room reminded me I wanted to make a coffee table I saw. Get an old childs sled, sand it down stain it, seal and attach coffee table legs for a lodge type coffee table. I love plaids and paisley together. Country Curtains have nice curtains on their website and will send you sample swatches. An idea for throw pillows is go to a SalVal or other second hand clothes store and find old sweaters, cut under the arms to make a tube sew one end, stuff a pre made pillow form in and hand stitch the top to make your own designer pillows. I found the 16x16 and the 18x18 pillow forms are a nice size. Hint: get a small sized sweater, they stretch. I am looking this week and next for those gaudy Xmas sweaters with the beads and bling to make xmas pillows from those.

The fungus is Petal Blight If you are getting petal blight, then deadheading is very important. All spent flowers should be destroyed. The best way is to toss them in the trash. Petal blight is a disease that hits some rhododendrons and azaleas that bloom later in the spring. It causes the flower to turn mushy before it naturally wilts. If you look closely it forms unsightly brown spots on the flowers. Petal Blight, Ovulinia azaleae: This fungal disease, caused by Ovulinia azaleae, primarily affects the flowers of azaleas, but mountain laurel and rhododendron flowers can also be infected. Indian and Kurume azaleas are especially susceptible. The disease starts on the flower petals as tiny, irregularly-shaped spots, giving a "freckled" appearance. On colored flowers the spots are white, and on white flowers the spots are brown. The spots quickly enlarge and become soft and watery. Flowers rot and stick to the leaves. Infection is easily spread from flower to flower by wind, rain and insects. The fungus survives the winter in the soil. The most important things that you can do to control this disease in the home landscape are to pick and destroy infected flowers and avoid overhead watering. This fungus survives in the soil, so it is important to replace the ground litter with uncontaminated mulches. Rake and remove flower debris from beneath plants and, if possible, remove old flowers still attached to plants. Apply new mulch around the base of plants to serve as a barrier to new infection. On large azalea plantings, where it is not practical to remove infected flowers, make weekly fungicide applications beginning just before bloom and continue until the last buds open. The best fungicides are a combination of chlorothalonil and benomyl or Mancozeb or Bayleton or triadimefon. During moist seasons, control may be difficult for late blooming varieties. Sanitation practices such as deadheading and removal of diseased material my improve control. In the northwestern US, Ovulinia is present, but similar symptoms can also be caused by Botrytis cinerea which is less damaging to the flowers and easier to control. It is important to remove diseased material from the vicinity of a planting. This means removing dead material that harbors spores of fungal disease and dying material that contains eggs of insects. Dying portions of a plant should be cut off and removed. The ground should be cleaned of dead leaves or flower parts. Pruned parts should be removed. Deadheading flowers involves removing the structure left after blooming before seedpods form. A rhododendron or azalea flower is composed of several florets connected to the stem by a base that is easy to break. When deadheading just grab the flower near this base area and twist the flower sideways and break it off in this spongy area. Try not to break any of the buds that are around the base of the flower.

Your are right that pruning is seldom necessary. What you are asking about is deadheading. It isn't necessary for healthy plants, but many people think they have to do it. I doesn't hurt if you are careful and may even help if the plant(s) become stressed. Since lots of people are asking this question, here is the text from by website: It is important to remove diseased material from the vicinity of a planting. This means removing dead material that harbors spores of fungal disease and dying material that contains eggs of insects. Dying portions of a plant should be cut off and removed. The ground should be cleaned of dead leaves or flower parts. Pruned parts should be removed. Deadheading flowers involves removing the structure left after blooming before seedpods form. A rhododendron or azalea flower is composed of several florets connected to the stem by a base that is easy to break. When deadheading just grab the flower near this base area and twist the flower sideways and break it off in this spongy area. Try not to break any of the buds that are around the base of the flower. In general all dead or dying plant material may harbor disease and should be destroyed by incinerating or placing in a trash receptacle. Wilted flower petals can harbor fungi such as petal blight. Dead stems can harbor larva of borers. Dead leaves can harbor spores of harmful fungi. On healthy plants, deadheading is desirable but not necessary. [Photos by Steve Henning] Is deadheading necessary? If the blooms were healthy, and if the plant blooms well every year, and if you don't mind the look of the plant with the wilted blooms, then there is no reason to remove them. However, if the blooms were infected with petal blight, or if the plant doesn't have a good bud set or only has a good bud set every other year, or you don't like the look of the plant with the spent flowers on it, then remove them. On some varieties deadheading makes a difference, on some it doesn't matter at all. On most varieties, it will only make a small difference if any. Most gardeners would like to deadhead but few actually do. If you are getting petal blight, then deadheading is very important. All spent flowers should be destroyed. The best way is to toss them in the trash. Petal blight is a disease that hits some rhododendrons and azaleas that bloom later in the spring. It causes the flower to turn mushy before it naturally wilts. If you look closely it forms unsightly brown spots on the flowers. This information can be found by going to my website below and clicking on "Sanitation & Deadheading" Here is a link that might be useful: How to grow rhododendrons and azaleas.

1. So long as your Venus Flytraps get plenty of light(at least 12000 lumens to full sun which is up to about 50000 lumens), soft water and the correct soil, they will flower just fine. Weakening and dying in Venus Flytraps occurs when they do not get enough light (grown inside for long periods of time under inadequate light) or other environemntal circumstances are off track regardless of whether they flower or not. Flowering just makes that weakening even worse. My Venus Flytrap flowered indoors in 12000 lumen florescent light just fine and produced seeds. In any less light, I would have needed to cut back the flower scape to keep the plant from weakening too much. 2. You can trim the leaves off of your Venus Flytraps and Sarracenias at any time really, they are just leaves after all, but it is fine to leave them there too. Right after they go dormant is another time you can clip their leaves back to reduce the incidence of mold if your having trouble with fungal attacks. I just mainly trim off dead and dying material when I see it and leave anything that is green. When you see a Venus Flytrap "bulb" sold from some places, what that means is that it was a plant that they cut the leaves off of and send you just the roots. This will not harm the plant really, but it will have to regrow all those leaves over again if they were in the growing season. The advice of cobraplant.com is good; they are a respectable nursery I always do business with. Their advice is mainly to keep mold off and to keep your plants nice looking. After dormancy they can look a bit messed up with half dead leaves. 3. Venus Flytraps do not die from flowering unless they are weak to begin with as mentioned before. The same is true for Sarracenias. Any North American plant, carnivorous or otherwise, that misses it's dormancy requirements might die from weakening next year after expending all its energy flowering. Dormancy is a rest period during which the plant uses the energy stored in its roots at a slow, steady level to survive winter until warm, bright spring weather comes back. That rest time became a part of their adaptation pattern so when you change that it can harm the plant at any time, especially when it flowers. 4. Sarracenias and Venus Flytraps are sometimes found growing side by side in the wild, however, usually Flytraps grow on higher ground where the water level is lower. Sarracenias like lower ground where they can get their roots wetter. If you grow them together, make sure you use a large enough pot or planter so you can make a terrain feature by forming a hill a couple inches taller in one section so you can plant Venus Flytraps there and Sarracenias in the lower areas closer to the water tray level. 5. Sarracenias all grow large rhizomes that are kind of like a carrot or rhubarb root. It tends to grow out in a thick tube with rootlets growing out from it. In some cases, if you leave the plant in a small pot, it will destroy the pot trying to grow it's roots out and it will be almost impossible to get the plant out of the pot. In answer, they can grow quite large if you leave them alone, taking over an entire pot after a couple of years. Many growers simply take rhizome divisions by cutting the rhizome in 1 inch sections (sometimes with plants already crowned on the sections) and rooting them as new plants every few years. For example, my S. rubra only had a 2 inch section of rhizome when I got it, so was probably a division. Now it is growing new rhizome extensions and trying to make new plants from them where they poke out of the soil surface. It probably has grown new roots over 3-5 inches deep in the soil too, seeking water. I would say that the roots would grow as long as they need to to find water. If you have them in a 5 inch pot, they will probably reach the bottom of the pot in adulthood. Keep replanting the plant in a new pot each year and make sure the pot is about an inch or so larger each time to give it room to grow. A 6-8 inch pot might be used for fully adult Sarracenias if that gives you an indication of root size.