that's a very interesting subject. i have mostly tropicals indoors and some go out to ultra bright NE balcony outside. lots of variegation. i think indoor culture is quite different from outdoor and season to season and latitude - just all very complicated! what i found is that a lot of time recommendations for these plants are from southern growers ... for outdoors! (FL). bright shade in summer in fl = bright dappled sun on the window sill for me in NYC. seasonal light differs a lot too. so while i put my plants in some early sun, NE bright shade(no sun) outside in summer, in winter they stay in dappled sun west window or even full sun west. one example is crotons: early summer outside in 3-4 hrs of sun cooler temps is great! but then they really color up in october too - no direct sun, 60-65F. while hot temps over 80F and direct hot sun in july -aug totally bleach out the leaves. but indoors west partial 3-4 hr sun in winter does wonders for them. caladiums are similar to that. they green in too much shade and bleach out in too much hot sun. while take 4-5 hrs of direct eastern sun indoors in summer. i have many more: stromanthe triostar, alocasia african mask, etc - that are strictly indoors. they are supposed to be in bright shade only, but i keep them all in dappled , even direct early/late sun to maintain color/good growth indoors in winter and sheers filtered sun in summer.

There are several reasons that it can matter which plant is seed parent and which is pollen parent. As said above, some plants only produce pollen. Some only set seeds. Some genes are carried only from seed parent. Varigation was mentioned in daylilies. In African violets, there are 2 (or more) genes for varigation. One is only via seed parent, the other is a simple recessive and must come from both pollen and seed parents. In some sugarcane crosses, if the cross is made in one direction, the seedling is a normal hybrid, half the chromosomes of each parent. But if the reverse cross is made, the hybrids have ALL the chromosomes of the seed parent and half the chromosomes of the pollen parent. Plants that are apomictic, i.e. set seeds asexually, sometimes have normal pollen. Some genes are methylated (methyl alcohol molecules bonded to the gene and thus turned off) when making pollen, or sperm in animals. So the trait shows in the next generation if it is from the seed parent, but skips a generation if it is from the pollen parent. In some interspecific peanut crosses, there is an effect from the direction of the cross. The differences fade over about 3 generations until it makes no diference which way the origional cross was made. Last I knew, no-one had a clue why. In certain sunflower interspecific crosses, DNA studies have shown that the F1 has had as little as 4% of the pollen parent's DNA and all the seed parent's DNA. And these plants grew normally and were at least somewhat fertile. 25 years ago, when I was in grad school, things like this didn't get published. Well, the sugarcane thing was well documented and used routinely. ButMendalian genetics was known to explain everything and one could loose ones reputation trying to publish stuff like this. Then once it was admitted that there were exceptions, the list of exceptions jsut poured in for a while. Now one final statement. These are all exceptions. Generally, it doesn't make much if any difference which way the crosses are made. When reverse crosses do make a difference, then it is generally true that using the better parent as the seed parent turns out best. The reverse cross of a mule is a hinny. While the mule has been concideed the better work animal, the hinny has been concidered the better riding animal in medivial Europe. Today, mules are sometimes bred for riding in hills or for hunting in some parts of the USA. Hinnies aren't generally even tried. Walter

PK, I pulled it up as soon as I saw the first leaves emerge. When I pull up an invasive, I don't merely tug and yank, I get my hand weeder (or shovel) and go down deep to get the roots. Merely pulling the plant up usually leaves too much root behind. Even in places where I could not get rid of every bit of root, I just made sure that I cut off every leaf that sprouted, which insured the death of the plant trying to emerge. Diligently removing emerging foliage on pesky invasives (such as alstromeria) worked well for me because the little brittle roots were impossible to dig up. Molly

Thanks. I am really excited about it. I just completed it two weeks ago. I moved some potted plants into it that have been outside since April and were struggling. In the last two weeks they have double in size and are flourishing like I have never seen before.