Hi all, My first plant was an African violet. My grandmother was at fault. It was 1979 and I was about 23 years old and in college. I decided I would like to have a house plant and went over to her place to get some pothos cuttings. She grew wonderful looking pothos like nobody I've ever seen since. Anyway she was really thrilled that I was interested in having of houseplant and cut me several good lengths of pothos stems. When we were done with that she took me over to the window and showed me an African violet. She told me that I could take one of those leaves, put it in a glass of water, and that it would grow new plants from the base of the stem. I thought to myself, "no way", but I took a couple of those leaves home, stuck them in a glass of water as she instructed and indeed after couple months little plantlets started to grow from the bottom of the stems. I then planted them in African violet soil and had two plants. I soon took more leaves and started even more African violets. I thought it was such a coup how I was able to produce these "free" plants. Although by the time I bought the pots and soil those plants were not free. lol I then started propagating other plants. I even grew a lemon tree from a lemon seed I had harvested when making lemonade one time. My surprise was that the thing had thorns. Even though I liked my plants I can say that I was really in love with them. That would come later. I graduated from college and married a girl who was in ROTC and went into the army six months later. She was immediately sent to different schools and we traveled around the country to three different places in less than a year. Keeping plants going under those conditions was not very good and I lost a lot of plants, but not my African violets. I wound up in Washington, DC and worked for what was pretty much a white collar "sweat shop". It wasn't uncommon for me to work 60 to 70 hours a week. I needed somewhat of a diversion occasionally though and I found that diversion to be houseplants. I was very lucky to share a corner office with a couple of other people. The sunlight was incredible, and the windows were tinted so that the sun was not too harsh. I bought several starter plants and had them around my desk. To make a long story short I had a spider plant that was just magnificent and I had a Swedish Ivy that was to die for. The Swedish Ivy hung from a 9 foot ceiling and was basically a pillar all the way to the floor. I could not get my arms around the circumference of the plant. Anyway that's when my love of plants really blossomed. I continued to purchase and propagate African violets and had several to give away. My wife, who would eventually become my ex wife, and I moved to Denver. I then became acquainted with other gesneriad cousins of African violets. I went to African violet and gesneriad shows annually and met several people who grew these plants. I love all of my plants but my first love is African violets and their gesneriad cousins. Larry

We're in Dallas. We had seed for several varieties, and I'm not sure which one this is. Doesn't look like green globe, but it could be that they're still too small to tell. We actually had several come up, but this is the only one that appears to have made it through last summer. It's in a spot that's hard to miss, so it gets a lot of attention from the hose :-) Thanks for the artijoke! I'm digging through my seeds to see if we've got any more of these things. If I can figure out which variety, I'll let you know.

Donna, The year my Blues laid three clutches, the first egg was laid on 4/6/10. Last year they laid their first egg 4/9/11, but only had two clutches. This year the first egg was laid 3/25/12. I will let you know if they have two clutches or three this year. But the other two years weren't that different, so I'm not sure what made them lay a third clutch. I was worried the babies from the third clutch wouldn't be feathered up before winter. I hope you get three if the weather holds. It is pretty cool to have three successful clutches.

I had some heartbreaking episodes on my porch with House Finch. No longer will I encourage them to nest anywhere on my porch. Cat's can jump at all angles to clean out a nest. Once, the mother was left 'in pieces' on my door mat. Squirrels, coon, snakes, and even large raptors, (crows, ravens, etc.) will dine on the babies. In the bird world, it's sometimes "I'll eat your babies before you eat mine." They usually strike at dawn ... it's not fun to know some things in nature ;(