Very nice. your plants that you show us all seem to be doing really well.

Our new, costly water filtering system resulted in the same small crowns that happened when I used the stuff meant for fish tanks. So we are back to lugging home jugs of spring water. And hoping the plants will recover sooner rather than later. (Hmm, maybe we are getting shorter, too!?)

There is a discussion going on another thread about eBay bidding. You might want to add your wisdom from your experience. It is about the sniping technology that can make it impossible to win a bid if bidding against someone using that program.

Joanne

Hi aegis, I am really happy for you. I use rain water with my violets and I lost all of them to heat last summer but I am up and running again and praying they servive this summer which I swear is one of the hottest I have felt in years. Your violet is beautiful. VELLETA

I've rarely been involved in any tight eBay bid-offs.

I've won a few times ... and lost many more.

The advice that I've gotten is to make your maximum bid the most you would want to pay for the item.

Once other bidders see that their counter-bids are automatically out-bid, they might be put off. I don't know that's affected by the software you speak of.

I usually opt for "Buy Now" items.

That is what I used to do also when buying other items. I entered my highest bid then let it go. But that resulted in small increments showing up, so the other bidders saw a lot of bidding activity. I also preferred the BINs. The sniping software is something else. It is an actual program that professionals use to hide the fact that they are bidding. They bid anonymously and the only actual bid that shows is the final one. It was a while ago, so I don't recall the details. There was a way to detect how many were bidding, there was a "back door" view that would show the number of bidders. In order for them to be anonymous, they had to meet certain spending or frequency criteria and have the actual program.

What a beautiful violet! My violets died a slow and painful death when we tried to use water softener systems. I think the salt (that filters the water) was the culprit. I lost almost everything. By the time city water came I had almost nothing left. Once we got city water I jumped on it. Little by little I got plants again. And they lived! So I understand what you mean. So sorry!!! Rosie