Ok, thanks! It is putting out more branches further up (although still real low) so, I guess it will be a couple of years of gentle pruning in the winters. What is a good height to start leaving branches? I mean, for the permenant shape of the tree. If it averages 10 ft in height, I can't imagine I would want to prune up too high in the long run, but I probably don't want it to look like a shrub... It sure is vigorous, I'm sort of fond of it already for having so much pep.

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

I'm in zone 5, 2 hours east of Chicago. My Persian Cornflower is 4 ft tall & just came into bloom this week. The flowers are not huge, but they are interesting. I have Walkers Low catmint that has been in bloom for a few weeks that's close to 4 ft. & it's went crazy in a bush form. Not sure if it spreads like other mints or not. My Black Knight Butterfly bush is 4 ft. so far, but not even close to blooming now. I have one daylily plant that the leaves are 3 ft. tall & the buds are starting to shoot & they will get 4 ft tall. I don't know the name, but it's a peachy gold color daylily. Moonflower can get pretty tall if you have sturdy enough support for it & the huge, white blooms smell wonderful. It's not 4 ft tall now, by any means though.

Last year I got my first ones also. I kept them going like regular houseplants for the remainder of the winter. When spring came I removed them from their pots and planted them in a large pot in my garden. They spent the Spring/Summer outside and were treated like everything else in the yard. They got water when it rained or I watered with the hose. Most here would probably not agreeing with my fertilizing with regular garden fertilizer but I did it anyway. They got fertilized when everything else in the garden got it. When fall was approaching I cut back on watering and let the leaves die and kept them cool and dark and then I potted them up again and they started growing. They're about double the size from when I got them from Target last year. You could just keep growing and they'll eventually flower for you or you could follow the instructions from this forum or other sites that detail how to get them to re-bloom again for you next winter. But if you leave them alone they'll keep growing and bloom when they're ready provided you give them good conditions.