Dear All, Thank you to all the people who wrote to me and suggested topics for the topic of the week. I will continue to accept nominations so it is not too late to write me with your suggestions. mailtomsittner@mcn.org One person suggested that we might want to discuss some topics for more than a week so people will have a chance to digest all the ideas and give those who might be busy at the time an opportunity to add their knowledge later. There are a few suggestions that are really just a specific question and not really a topic. Maybe I'll do a week where I ask one of those questions each day or maybe I can try to put some of these together, but also want to remind everyone that if you have a question you do not have to wait for it to become a topic to ask it. Some of you gave me ideas that we can all participate in that won't require an introduction which will be a big help for me. A few of you told me what you'd be willing to introduce which I also appreciate. I heard from about 22 people and luckily many of them had a lot of ideas. So I will start with some of the ideas that were mentioned by more than one person and then just pick a subject from each person who took the time to write and then pick a second idea until I run out of ideas. I counted and there were more than 200 suggestions and Robert Parker has promised me he will send me pages of ideas and I haven't added my choices to the list. So it looks like we will have ideas for a number of years so it may seem foolish for me to ask for more. But if more of you respond it may help me determine what subjects are the most popular. I'll start tomorrow with the first topic which is growing from seed. I know we have discussed this before, but many people asked for it again or had specific questions about it. We can approach this in many ways but I am suggesting that we start with different people sharing their secrets. Alberto has already done this answering Jennifer's questions about seeds she had trouble with and just this past week Tom Glavich told us what he does. I will be sharing some of my saved tips during the week and asking some of the specific questions people submitted if they don't ask them first. The following week I think everyone should ask about genera or species that they have not been able to grow from seed and see if anyone can help. I am announcing this ahead of time so everyone can check your notes and memory banks for difficult seeds and be ready to ask. The more people who ask questions and share their experiences the better this will be for everyone and the easier it will be for me. But I will pull together some introductory comments tomorrow. Mary Sue