Jkirk3279

I have this "Draw Poker" game.

You can't vary the bet, which would make it too easy.

Deal five cards, hold the ones you want, etc. Jacks or better pays 5 points. Two of any pair is ten, etc.

Every bet costs you 5 points.

I've fooled with this for years, on and off. Playing conservatively gradually builds some points but they always bleed away again.

Is there any guide to beating this thing?

I've lost it somehow... but I had an anti-war song from 2004.

It's plaintive and despairing.

It goes something like "War: is a harsh brazen note, that pleads to the King...". Something, something.

I think there are mentions of Chariots and battles.

Anybody remember it?

I am trying to raise Jiaogulan vine plants, AKA Gynostemma Pentaphyllum from Korea.

It's like Ginseng in it's properties. And it makes a lemony sort of tea.

I planted twenty seeds and got one plant !

So I read about propagation techniques;

1) Put a branch in a pot of dirt, cover, and wait three weeks or longer.

I got four or so plants that way this Spring, although I noticed the process won't work in the bright, long days of summer and picks up again in the Fall.

2) Take a branch cutting, dip stem in rooting powder, put stem in a small cup of dirt, and keep moist for a week.

If it lives and roots, you have a new plant.

Unfortunately... while I started eight (out of eleven) plants successfully that way, they never threw a runner.

The leaf got thicker, much darker, and healthy. But that was it.

And without a crown to throw runners, sunlight eventually bleached the leaf until, cell by cell, it died.

The whole point is to grow enough to harvest for herbal tea. So runners are a must.

My question for the Botanists on the list is how to solve this problem.

1)Is there a hormone I can buy that would start branches or runners forming?

2)Do I need to keep the rooted cutting alive in dim light for months or years until they start to throw runners?

3)How do the Koreans successfully propagate this stuff ?

4)How long does Gynostemma Pentaphyllum take to form seeds, and how do I recognize them?

5)How much fertilizer, and what pH, would make the plants healthy? Lately they don't look so great.

The healthiest I've seen were the cuttings that devoted all their strength to that one leaf.