Hi Patty, I got the pics to open..Guess I mistyped the first time. Sorry about that..Yep, both are dracaenas. You asked if misting once a wk was sufficient..I try to mist at least once a day, especially if the house is dry. And w/the heat on the house is getting dry..I not only mist but use humidifers and 2 indoor foutains. I like for the humidity at least 50%. At the minimum. Wow the plant is 6' tall and the pot only 8" tall? Do you know the diameter? (measure across on top/this tells diameter) The pot definatly sounds too small for this tall tree. Unless you find yourself watering every other day, there's no need to repot just yet..But as soon as daylight lenghtens, I'd definatly repot..Use your judgement on pot size. The reddish twig-like things are roots..as long as you can see them emerging from the drainage holes, you know the roots are full. Black pots are fine, unless you want a decorative pot..I use very few decorative pots..mostly plastic or clay depending on plant..Some of my dracaeans are in the black plastic pots. They're not beaty's, but work fine. And if you want something nicer, you can always buy a larger container and set something on the bottom of the pot like styrofoam sheets so plant won't sit in water. Don't get me wrong, Patty, I like pretty containers, but care more about the plants health. BTW, of what I can see of your plants, they look really nice..Are those your plants or from a website? I can see you can't hose these plants in the sink, but if you have the energy, you can always bring to the shower. Let water run over plants a while. This really helps perk plants up. I mix my own soils, Patty..For dracaenas I use 1/3 black soil, 1/3 peat and 1/3 sand or Perlite. Been using this mix for many years. Oh I wanted to mention, you said, you heard these plants can take very low light..I disagree..they take at least medium light. Too low light and they become spindly and lose color. Which directions are the windows? Toni

Carol - 2 systemic miticides are very efficient - and not as poisonous as Avid -it is Forbid and Pylon. Pylon is excellent for thrips as well - but it is very expensive and has a shelf life of 3 years. So -if you do not have them - do not waste your money. You can always buy it fresh as needed. I dragged my mites from AVSA in Raleigh. Why I think that Aniketa needs to restart the yucky plant - because no matter what she does - it will look horrible and distorted for a year- and if she restarts from a leaf - she will have new blooming plants in 6 months. I. PS Linda - I would say - if you are not as lazy as I - spray it twice. Irina And I sprayed everything with Pylon that was old.

If any part of your fuchsia is curling severely or growing in a very deformed manner then you have the misfortune of having contracted fuchsia gall mite (and from the sound of it you have). Fuchsia mite is once again becoming quite common in the United States as more people buy infected fuchsias. Fuchsias were becoming popular in parts of the United States during the 70's and 80's until massive mite infections killed their growing popularity. Sadly I know about this mite all too well. I am a member of the local fuchsia society, which manages a large fuchsia bank of thousands of different varieties of fuchsia as part of a larger 87-acre botanic garden. The garden has been plagued with this mite for several years now. The mites lives inside the foliage, specifically in young growth parts such as new buds or new growth shoots. Saliva from the little microscopic critters causes distortion followed by deformation of the plant parts that eventually will become very severe and overtime will significantly damage the health of the fuchsia or even kill it all together. The mite is HIGHLY infectious, as it is easily spread from one plant to another (method of transmission is unclear, although I suspect hummingbirds play a role) and the mites are dammed difficult to eradicate. I myself have been battling fuchsia mite for several years with varying degrees of success. If fuchsia mite is caught within the first season of infection and the plant is sufficiently small enough for you to be able to spray the surface of all the leaves, then an insecticide that works systemically can kill it if sprayed in 2 or 3 successive and regular applications. You can find a suitable insecticide at any Home Depot or Lowes in the garden center. Any insecticide that specifically says it kills fuchsia mite and is a systemic will do the trick, but make sure the bottle specifically says it will "kill fuchsia mite" and not just simply "kills mites." If you have other fuchsia currently not suffering from this problem, then you do not want to delay in dealing with it, in fact the other fuchsia are probably already infected but the symptoms have not yet show up. If you do decide to spray then make sure you wear adequate protection as recommended on the label and spray all other fuchsia according to the application directions as well as the infected plant in case they too are infected. One last and very important note: MAKE SURE YOUR FUCHIAS ARE WELL WATERED AND ALL LEAF SURFACES ARE DRY BEFORE APPLYING. DO NOT SPRAY THE SOIL SURROUNDING THE PLANT, AS THAT WILL KILL THE ROOTS. TRY NOT TO ALLOW TOO MUCH SPRAY TO DRIP FROM THE FOLIAGE TO THE SOIL SO THE ROOTS WILL NOT BE DAMAGED. DO NOT WATER THE FUCHSIA UNTIL THE INSECTICIDE HAS HAD A CHANCE TO DRY ON THE SURRFACE OF THE LEAFS. ONLY APPLY WHEN TEMPURATES ARE MILD. Good luck Bamboo

Whoa! Are those aloe flowers?? I saw aloe blooming for the first time in person when I visited Austin. Ok, maybe I've seen them blooming at flower shows, but that almost doesn't count. The good: I water everything by hand, and will take things down off the shelves on a regular basis to check out how they are doing. Almost everything is potted in coco husk chunks or fiber, which tend to let things dry out pretty well while still holding a 'core' of emergency moisture within the chunk without being soggy. Meaning I have a bit of a cushion before things go absolutely bone dry with very little risk of rotting. The bad: ...Except when I get totally absorbed in a project. Particularly knitting. I like to see progress when I knit, so I tend to do 'just a little more' until I end up falling asleep. Then I wake up in the morning realizing what I've done, and don't have time to check on the plants before work. Then I come home the next day, and do the same thing. And then I lose track of how many days it's been. I'm trying to be very good about that this time, and only go a couple days max before checking on the plants. Right now, patella is a major motivator. It is really and truly growing new leaves on those vines, and I want to keep this momentum going! The weird: Um, I like to give the hoyas some 'rain'. I have chemical wash bottles that I water my mounted orchids and some of my hoyas with, which are nice for directing a stream of water to a very specific location. Especially nice if I want to give some hoyas a drink without moving them all around. NOT fun for a really solid watering for potted plants, but fine for little drinks of water. So, I've been using these chemical wash bottles to 'rain' on my hoyas, watering the foliage. I think they enjoy this. My shelves are covered with mylar, and a lot of my hoyas are actually in a tray, so splashing water around isn't a big problem. I especially like to 'rain' on the hoyas when they have new leaf growth starting. I think this does help keep new leaves from aborting. The only downside is that I will get some water spotting, because the water I use is the same that I water the potting medium with, so it does have fertilizer in it. But I figure, in the wild, they often grow epiphytically, right? Meaning they get their nutrition from leaf debris and birds pooping on them. So my fertilizer water is the equivalent of bird poop, ha.