Fantastic!

You could download some free software which would give you the ability to open and edit excel files, like open office for example...

Thanks Sachi
I am beginning to realize that I must water my succulents a little in winter, it just doesnt seem right after years of growing just cacti and keeping them bone dry...

Thanks Ernie
I have been watering some cuttings of my euphorbias very lightly, will extend that to the larger plants and keep my fingers crossed!

I have a few plants of E. horrida and E. polygona which are hosts to the parasite Viscum minimum . The mistletoe grows in the winter mostly, especially the flowering and fruiting phase. The plants are in a greenhouse kept at 4 or 5 degrees C minimum. Up 'til now I have left the plants without water ...

Hi Derek couldnt agree more regarding Bromeliads at succulent shows. Dyckias for example have a fair amount of water storage tissue in the leaves so are probably succulents, and in any case are about as succulent as most Agaves. Marlon we need you to get out there and collect some more bromeliad see...

Western flower thrips is an introduced greenhouse pest, so they will have come in on some other plant, rather than from the garden. They are weak fliers so tend not to spread easily except by direct introduction on an infested plant. Any flowering pot plant and bedding plant these days seems to have...

Certainly looks like it, although thrips are difficult to ID without a microscope (see http://cisr.ucr.edu/western_flower_thrip.html )
The little blighters are impossible to get rid of I have discovered, resistance to insecticides is common. Still waiting for a good biological control...

Thats a thrip, not a sciarid fly, try imidicloprid

That's interesting Lindsey, my stapeliiformis wont stop flowering now it has become mature. Even the cutting I took continued to flower over the summer, well before it was rooted, and is still going strong now. I suspect though that if unhappy it would jettison some of the climbing growths and this ...