Izhar! That is one beautiful leaf! Once that plant grows, you will be amazed at how much pleasure it will bring you. I have a few of these and what I like about them the most is that they take up no prime sunny space in the house or yard. I just stick them in the cellar where there is barely any light, or dark corners of the house, north facing windows where almost none of my other plants will grow, or the the yard under trees and shrubs. I just love them. I never get bugs on mine either. I can't even believe that you got one to sprout. I have tried and failed. That is a great job. Thanks for the info on the white stuff. I like your idea about keeping pH down. Very good idea. Toni: Thank you for that although they are not as pretty as Izhars! I will hold of on ordering. I saw some on e-bay from Vietnam too, and now those caught my eye. Sometimes I wonder why so many unusual plants are so hard to find here in the U.S. Hope everyone has a great day today! 82 here today again. I love it. Mike

7000ft, I am totally convinced you ought to write a book. Your family sounds very interesting and it sounds like you all work as a cooperative of sorts. How much of your food do you produce? The tomatoes that I grow are primarily for sauce, so I use Roma-type tomatoes. They are odd-looking, being long and quite large. The variety I grew this year was Super San Marzano. I've tried some others, but this one is the best. The sauce-type tomatoes are awesome for making sauce. They are very meaty with minimal juice and seeds. Making sauce is a breeze because you can skip the steps for squeezing the juice and seeds out. According to the catalogs, some varieties have pectin in them that helps to thicken the sauce. We ended up with 25 jars of sauce in the freezer. That is a record for us, so we are pleased! That's 25 dinners during ski season that I don't have to cook. :) I also grow a cherry tomato and some sandwich-type tomatoes. I've had good luck with Early Wonder, which is early yet tasty. (way better than early girl!) Inside the GH we enjoy our first tomatoes in mid-July. Without the GH we are lucky to get any red tomatoes at all. I'm sure it's the same for you. My gardening efforts are pretty much solo, but my husband was instrumental in building the GH and in helping look after things as needed. He is an expert at raising seedlings because I tend to travel a lot in the spring. He also built a root cellar and he is fully on board with our quest to grow as much food as possible. It's a bit of an oddball pursuit, so I'm happy that he's into it!

idk, ....I have a huge tank, H-U-G-E ......A 190 GALLON tank ......and I have each pair of black Moore, red head white oranda, red head orange oranda, orange bubble-eye, black-orange stripped bubble-eye, paradise & a pair I don't know the name ....... among other fishes, there are 2 stripped angelfish, 2 black angelfish, 2 silver angelfish ........2 loach, a few sucking catfish ......& 2 pairs of betta this has been 4 years, and all the fishes are here since then ......no death at all ......but I take Kate of the tank very little, except weekly cleaning & adding some salt immediately after changing of water I think its more of luck that they'll either live or die

I saw gorgeous Nematanthus Ubatuba in a back yard in Tampa area - this is a large leaf and generally large plant. Most of Nematanthus do have orange or pale orange flowers. There are some exotic red, white and greenish with dots blooming species - but they are harder to grow and not available in a general nursery sale. Nematanthus comes from South America - I bet it is not dry in Brazil ;-)), but my understanding - it is an understory plant - it grows under the trees and on the trees as epiphyte - so dappled light would be good. Aeschynanthus (lipstick plant) takes the same niche - but in tropical Asia - so requirements are similar. Aeschynathus flowers of the available in nurseries varieties are mostly red, one really easy and quite wide spread species A. longicaulis (marmoratus) has interesting green flowers and gorgeous marble backed leaves. Some time ago a Florida member of this forum posted a pic of a large and well grown specimen of this plant - and it was growing in a back yard. Very desirable A.hybrid is called "Black Pagoda". Regarding conventions - the local gesneriad and AV clubs usually run their shows once a year mostly in the same place. The larger conventions are done in different towns every year - because most of the work is done by the hosting club - and they take turns. You check gesneriadsociety.org and avsa.org on "events" - so you will know who runs what in your vicinity. I would say you are in luck if you have a club nearby you can join - this is usually a source of knowledge, cuttings and nice people to associate with. (Just do not use the words "lipstick" and "goldfish" - if you are dealing with gesneriad crowd - they like to use botanical names - even sometimes not very many people know how to pronounce it right - for me - the biggest issue is Kohleria warszewiczii - I grow this beautiful plant - but i cannot "voice" it.) Cheers Irina Here is a link that might be useful: hybrids and species of Nematanthus