Charlie, Seems there's ads on every site including GW. I detest sitting, awaiting an entire commercial on YT before watching a vid or listening to a song. Seems like all grammas can grow a plant/s without proper care, and they do wonderful. My grand-mother had an African Violet in a ceramic, non-drainage pot, sitting several feet from a curtained window. Yet, it bloomed like crazy..perfect foliage..she never fertilized, and watered whenever. My friends mother had several plants including TC/Cc in butter containers. lol..Again, no drainage or fertilizer. Her TC/CC bloomed every year. I don't get it. I used to work at a plant store where we bagged plants despite size. We'd packaged w/brown paper called Sleeves. Sleeves were cone-shaped. The bottom of the sleeves had a hole which was set over a metel stand, then the plant was lifted and placed through the top of the sleeve on the stand. The remaining sleeve was rolled up to the top, folded and stapled. Sleeves are still sold, but usually purchased in huge quantities. Or were. You probably have NO idea what I just said..lol Yep, I think most teens want to grow One certain plant. lol At least your son was interested in the Bamboo..That's a start, right??? What type of bamboo is/was it? Have you ever considred growing from seeds/cuttings? If you have room for a plant stand/light, different plants can be grown..Or small plants like AV's, Episcias, etc. LOL, kneeling ovation. Did you save your music? Tossing something so personal would be difficult...comes from the heart. Hey, at least you came in second, even if it was to Crazy Harold and his Trombone..lol We're you embarrassed performing? In the beginning, Jim Morrison feared looking at the crowd. He'd stand towards the band, back to the audience. Well, if your plants don't care for your voice, strum instead..:) Welcome Tiff, Don't be shy, most people here are wonderful and very helpful. What type of plants do you have? Planning on adding? You'll get used to GW. Finding forums and information. After typing in gardenweb dot com, once the page opens, click on GardenWeb Forums. Another page will open listing all forums. Search for the forum you want to enter.. Eg: Houseplants, etc. On the bottom of the page is a Seach Box, and an option to search a plant in a certain forum or all. Check the box, type in the plant; several new and old threads pop up. It's nice meeting you. Hope you enjoy GW. Howdy Mike. Hope everything is settled, and you're well. Like you, autumn which leads into 'winter,' is a tad depressing. I've always enjoyed season changes, (fall leaf color, winter snow for Christmas,) but my feelings changed. Winter is gray, sunless and way too cold. SADS can be a real problem. Toni

This was under Westelle's post pruning salvias: Posted by: Rich_Dufresne z7 NC (My Page) on Tue, Jan 25, 05 at 21:07 Please wait until you see new growth. I use the `asparagus' rule to trim Salvias. Bending the stem until it snaps (towards the outer end) will reveal the approximate area where the transition of the woody growth to new green growth is. This is also the point where cuttings are taken. I treat shrubby woody stemmed sages like greggiis and microphyllas that form twiggy, woody growth like raspberries or roses. Definitely do not cut these to the ground. Cutting to the ground is only good for those sages that form short stolons underground and send up new shoots, like sinaloensis, glechomiifolia, leucanthas, some microphyllas, guaraniticas, and others. If the plant was rooted and set into the ground with no nodes beneath the soil line, it will not send up shoots in any case. You can often tell this has happened when there is a thick trunk coming from the soil, and the first node has a multitude of stems coming from it. Cut that boy off, and you have a dead plant.

As I've found the greggii labels to not always be very accurate, I am just saying how mine were labeled by the nurseries and they have not been verified by an expert. I'm not a collector, but I use a lot of salvias for the long boom season. All of mine are in bloom right now and have been blooming well since May. I am growing a few of the red greggii in part sun. The ones labeled 'cherry queen' are growing under a crape myrtle on the south west side of the house and doing great. They don't get morning sun, but get midday to afternoon sun. For almost three years now, the ones labeled 'Navajo red' are protected from afternoon sun by a large weeping willow. I thought I had lost those from our snows this winter. I cut back 4 of the 5 to the basal foliage and they have now caught up with the 1 that I left alone. The greggii varieties that are getting 8-10 hours of sun in my garden are 'Diane', 'Texas Wedding', 'Dark Dancer' and one that BB just had labeled as 'Autumn Sage' that is a hot pink color. Cameron

Actually, tropicals have various "triggers", too. Stresses being a general category for discussion. Temperatures (also the nighttime low temps), humidity can be triggers. The "seasons" in the tropics are wet and dry, whether it be in a coastal plain to mountainous area, Mediterranean clime, et al. ALso, closest the equator there are 2 "high sun" periods, when sun intensity is strongest as rays travel from Tropic of Cancer to equator to T of Capricorn and back to equator. Often people note that animals sense things so much more acutely than us preoccupied humans. I'm sure plants are much more in tune to the subtleties (spelling?) to very strong light versus 75% of that, etc. Then again, there is the photoperiod. Brugmansias, for example, are well documented for their flushes of blooms seemingly corralated with the lunar cycle (some seem to flower afer the new moon, others consistently after the full--?). Since there is not a 4 season cycle over 12 months in the tropics, i oculd readily see that a plant has genetic codes that have their own species (or generic) cycles--whether it be driggered by day length, an exposure to a heat or cold stimulus/stress, etc--that may revolve every 30 days, or 3 months... Some plants, based on their location in the rainforest (howmuch sun they actually receive on the forest floor) may also be the trigger of flower or vigor. Perhaps the light intensity of the sun's rays in November matches the light level needed for floral initiation. For example, maybe in nature an aroid is in deep shade all year (in the Amazon basin) until the height of "summer", when the few rays that come down through the dense overstory is now at say, 1000 footcandles. Take it out of the rainforest and place it in a temperate zone garden that has an overstory tree (but not as dense as a tropical canopy). In this temperate garden with the less dense canopy, the aroid may always receive 1500 footcandles (too high for it's genetically disposed trigger of 1000 footcandles to produce flowers). But, as the sun diminishes towards winter, perhaps the sun is weak enough to pass through that same sparse canopy to BOOM! match that 1000 footcandle threshold that would be achieved in the rainforest, and all of a sudden it flowers--in the seemingly "wrong" season. Now, adding that you're in central northern CA and I"m in southern FL, and I too have noticed that the Alpinia purpureas are flushing brand new floral spikes, that there is perhaps something genetic with photoperiod. But I'm sure there are other plants that may do some "atypical" things from a FLoridian standpoint there in CA based on humidity, soil pH, or a host of other things that really need to be isolated and researched.