Hi madgardener,

Well, lucky you for your thick skin, I'm not always able to ignore
someone who insults me. Yes, I admit it, I have a thin skin.

nothing wrong with that. I used to have a thin skin myself. At my young age
of 51, and former position of doormat, I learned just by bad experiences to
be gentler and less affected by insulting words directed towards me. With
everything that has happened to me on the shocked and horrible scale (and
there are some serious things that have happened to me in my life that I'm
not afraid of talking about or am ashamed of) I should be a most bitter,
cynical person. Instead, I find that somehow I am pessimistically
optimistic. I am a realist. g

What I do not admit however, is to being a "genious with no
common-sense". I'm sorry, but your definition of common sense must be
different from mine. Case in point :

First thing, you were not whom I was calling a genius with no common sense.
That was my friend, Alice who I've known since I was three. And EVERY
person I've encountered in my life who has been gifted in higher
intelligence has suffered in someway, either in common sense or by emotional
maturity.

Where Alice lacked a basic common sense, my ex-husband whose IQ was so high
it was frightening was artistic, musical with no effort, seeming to be born
to be able to just pick up a guitar and play every chord, could write, was
very deep, but suffered horribly from Schizophenia.
I know another gentleman of aquaintances that has a rather high IQ, who has
not only intelligence but a photographic memory and natural understanding of
Latin despite that he never took it but "couldn't pour **** outa a boot
without the instructions were written on the heel" and then he'd still
question the instructions in some way.

You were being a bit persumptious there when you thought I was implying that
you were either a genius or lacked common sense. I have no idea as to the
level of your intelligence. I just was saying that just because you were a
law student, which takes intelligence of it's own kind to understand all the
things legal and such, didn't mean it was bad that you didn't know what was
wrong with your plant or how to fix it. I must not have made myself clear,
which is a mistake I make when writing sometimes. Granted, I write TOO MUCH
in detail most times, but often there is that little voice in the back of my
head dictating and I don't always get every thought thru clearly.


1) rocks we're covering the top soil of my plant simply because my cat
thought it was a nifty litter box. She never tried it again after the
rocks were in place. They are now removed and she apparently forgot
the plant's previous usage.

I've done the same thing with the lava rocks that come in bags sold at
Lowes. And since it's lava rock, it's porous, and light weight, I never had
to remove it and water just went thru to the soil underneath. Great minds
think alike! g although I did this 15 years ago when one of my cats
discovered the rather large pot of Schifflera (concidence!) was a perfect
place to urinate and leave lumps of love for me. Almost killed the plant
with the urine....The lumps of love weren't as bad as the pee was due to the
high salt content and such. I had to repot the thing and it took a 40 pound
bag of soil to fix the problem and that's when I got my idea of putting lava
rock on top of the soil to deter his visits to his own personal potty.
Fixed his cat's ass rather quickly.

2) my plant was put outside as per my annual schedule. This plant has
been outside every summer since I have it, which is about 7 years. Its
spot has direct sunlight only in the morning for a few hours. I bring
the plant back inside at fall when the nights get below 15C. Every
year, it grows more beautiful during the summer and its growth slows
down the rest of the year. Maybe the plant has the 7 year itch...

well this is better than your first post. More informative, I will say. And
think about this.....you live in Canada. Different lattitude. Different
climate. And you just said that it was still cold up there. Schiff's are
tropical, and when your spring and summer warm up, it's happy. Morning
sunlight is perfect for these plants, as I think they are understory plants
in the jungle. (someone can correct me if I'm mistaken, I've never seen them
growing in the wild, so how would I know?) And that's exactly what it's
supposed to do. Grow during the "growing period" of it's plant life, and
then slow down and go more dormant during it's "winter" when probably rains
aren't as plentiful and even though it's still warm by our standards, it's
cooler for it by comparrison.

Mine go banana's during the summer as it's extremely humid and hot during
our mid springs and summer into the fall. I even have a 200 pound Cereus
cactus that despite it's being a cactus, thrives during the rainy summer and
sometimes gifts me with a healthy huge extension. If not, it always blooms,
with many many buds that ripen at their own pace and bloom once a night and
then are finished. I've counted as many as 39 buds on this cactus but they
don't all bloom at the same time. I just hate there are no nocturnal
pollinators to do their thing with it and it could set seeds. I have to take
cuttings if I want another one, and this is so large now that I don't even
bother.

3) it is a well known fat that something wet will dry when put in the
sun. So for a begginner, putting the plant outside as I usually do was
only logical...

and that was a good thing honey. You don't have to justify your actions. You
did well. But when it started showing something was wrong, you turned to the
newsgroup for assistance.

As someone much older and wiser than me said today "Cereus-Validus feeds on
attacking newbies because most of the regular posters have learned to ignore
his foul-mouthed, vitriolic attacks. If one ignores him, he has nothing to
bolster his ego and leaves one alone. Sure some of the newbies ask stupid
questions that can be found elsewhere, but I don't think most of them
realize this when they post a question. They think someone in the ng will
help them. His attacks often serve little purpose beyond driving newbies
away with the vow that they'll never ask another."




So let's just agree for the record that there is no such thing as lack
of common sense in someone who just isn't knowledgeable...
I agree..........

And last, but not least :

4) how can someone not react when asking a question, is told that
she's a dimwit and should just give up?
by feeding the fire, it gets larger. Remember the lession about bullies. If
you don't respond to their toutings and teasings they get bored and leave
you alone. You said yourself that "As per my search on Google, all he does
is insult everyone. " Sad to think you had to find that out after getting
into a shit slinging contest....I don't even try to best him. I'm not good
at barbs or slings. I think of them far too late to have effects. I am more
of a comedian at times............

I think from now on, when I have nothing nice to say, I will just shut
up. Here's to hoping that a certain someone will do the same and get
over it already. Happy 4th of July!

thank you. I hope there was no harm or foul here with my interjecting my
thoughts.
maddie

Cheers!

Helene in cold Quebec

And by the way, I have a law degree, but I'm not a lawyer. I have a
high level job at the government. So let's not judge anyone here and
make assomptions just for the fun of being mean.

Hi maddie,

You know, I'm 30, so maybe that explains the thin skin... but I'm working on it...

"You were being a bit persumptious there when you thought I was implying that
you were either a genius or lacked common sense."

You're right, sorry, I guess I was still on edge of being called stupid by a certain someone.



"I've done the same thing with the lava rocks that come in bags sold at
Lowes. And since it's lava rock, it's porous, and light weight, I never had
to remove it and water just went thru to the soil underneath. Great minds
think alike!"

Lava rocks, great idea. Mine are polished river rocks. But they are no longer on the soil.


"Almost killed the plant
with the urine....The lumps of love weren't as bad as the pee was due to the
high salt content and such."

There were 2 "trees" of Scheflera in the pot, and it's only when I noticed that one was dying that I started keeping an eye on it, and caught the cat "in action". She did manage to kill one. And the prettiest too!

"And you just said that it was still cold up there. Schiff's are
tropical, and when your spring and summer warm up, it's happy."

I didn't say it was still cold, just that we didn't have warm temperatures yet, warm as in "over 30C with 100% humidity, OMG I can't breathe" kinda warm. Yes, we do have that up here. So far, temperatures have been in the 22-27. And I'm talking celcius here.

"Morning sunlight is perfect for these plants"

I knew she loved it outside!

"I even have a 200 pound Cereus cactus"

Wow, do you have a picture of it posted somewhere on the net?


"You don't have to justify your actions."

Well, when someone tells me all I do is wrong in every area of my life, I find myself wanting to prove them wrong. But you're right, what do I have to prove? He doesn't even know me, so what should I care, right? I guess that's due to some youthful hope of mine that someone can be convinced that he's wrong.


"Cereus-Validus feeds on attacking newbies because most of the regular posters have learned to ignore his foul-mouthed, vitriolic attacks."

Then I shall starve him.

"Sure some of the newbies ask stupid questions that can be found elsewhere, but I don't think most of them realize this when they post a question."

Of course not, if not, they wouldn't post it... But everyone has to start somewhere, you know.

"I hope there was no harm or foul here with my interjecting my
thoughts."

No there wasn't.



I repotted my Scheflerra, and I was impressed to see that it didn't have as much roots as I thought it would. Only a couple of big ones.

I also had to tutored my tomatoes. The tomatoes are growing bigger, with no sign of turning red. Some of them are slightly bigger than a gof ball. Perhaps they need more sun... I will put them on my back balcony as soon as I can find the "L" hook to hold them up on the wall. Because I have street cats peeing on anything I leave out there. But not on my front balcony... no stairs...

Take care,

Helene