Billy Rae, they grow wherever they can, LOL. I started collecting plants seriously when I lived in Los Angeles between the years of 1985 and 1992. I was able to bring a few here to Florida when we moved here in the summer of 1992. The house we moved into initially and lived in for 11 years was a 1920's Historic Home that had a 240 sq ft sunroom, what is called here a "Florida Room". Almost every house built between 1890-1930's has a Florida Room, which is basically a large screened porch where people would sleep in summer because it was cooler there and there was no air conditioning. The people who we bought the house from had glassed in the screen portions with 8x8 plate glass windows and it was climate controlled. The room had a tiled floor with a drain in the floor and an indoor hose spigot so in the old days they would just wash the sand that blew through the screen out via the floor drain. Of course I immediately started collecting plants once here, LOL and ammassed a huge collection very quickly of orchids, bromeliads, heliconias, and many others that could not stay outdoors in winter and had to be drug into the house and into the Florida Room. We outgrew that house, and in 2002 we moved out to the "country" to a 5 acre property and I was able to build this greenhouse. The Florida Room we have here is very small and gets poor light, but I do keep some houseplants in there year round. Everything else that would have had to be a houseplant, or and "in and out" plant, became a greenhouse plant. I didn't want the artificiality of benches and shelves, the plants that I had did not lend themselves to that anyway, I had 30+ gallon tubs of 15-16 ft tall heliconias and ultratropical gingers that needed to be planted. SO I decided to use the greenhouse in the style of a botanical garden tropical conservatory. It is in its 6th year and I tinker with it constantly. I have collected shells, driftwood, rocks, and all sorts of stuff to use to make it look like a natural setting. I have planted everything I can, mounted as many of the orchids and bromeliads as I can, and tried to minimize the use of containers, but there are still a lot of containers, especially hanging ones, because floorspace is, well, gone now. I can only plant new stuff if I remove other stuff. So I Have had to be creative. I wanted water in there so I have a 20 ft stream and a pond, and am building a drop fall/fountain that goes into a stone basin now. Here are a couple more photos...a prime example of why I can't keep some of this stuff in my house (and its not hardy here)...this is a rare palm called a Salacca magnifica. It is heavily armed...the undersides of the leaves have large rigid spines. Its what is called an "entire leaf" palm...there is basicaly no trunk. The leaves at present time are approaching 10 ft in length, at maturity a single leaf can be 20 ft tall/long. I have only had this palm for a little over 2 years, it is very fast growing. It would be way too dangerous in the house, and I would not be able to move it. So I had to plant it! This is another example...this is a photo from last year about this time when the Jade Vine was in bloom. This is a very highly sought after rare Tropical liana, Strongylodon macrobotrys. Tons of people want this vine, and are willing to spend $50-100 for a plant, thinking that they will be able to keep it in a pot on a trellis and bring it in the house in the winter. But in reality, that can't be done. This vine is a tropical creeper, its name in Phillipines where it comes from is Emerald Creeper. It will engulf everything in its path (I have to prune mine constantly) and won;t bloom until it gets a big woody trunk (usually 3 years after planting). I got mine as a trade when I still lived at the old house, and would never have been able to see it bloom like this as a houseplant: I don't look at my greenhouse as separate from my house. My original dream was to build this kind of place ONTO the house, where you would just open a door and step from the house into the greenhouse, and they would be continuous. We tried to figure out a way to do that when we moved here, but the renovation would have cost over $100,000. It just wasn't doable. So, I consider this my "second Florida Room". I just have to walk a few steps down the driveway, not out a door, LOL.

What the heck kind of burlap did they use? Any bit of burlap I left on degraded by the end of the season. I'm not saying leave it on, but the ones I did leave it on it degraded. As for the wire baskets, those won't rust away for years and years. I bought a small bolt cutter to cut away the top half of the wire basket. Those are a joke and should NOT be left on. I had to cut a tree down only after 2 seasons and its root system was all tangled in the basket.

First of all, permit me to correct something I said in the prior post. The chemical in question there is known in English usually as ionone; the spelling ionon is used, but much less frequently. Second, I Googled the word Jonon and restricted the results to German language results; there were only 525 results. But when I Googled ionon and restricted the results to German language results, there were 10,700 results. Then I did the same for ionone and there were 13,200 results. Evidently, German usage is roughly divided between ionon and ionone. The comments about the use of capital J to avoid confusion with lower case l still stand, although this is not a change in spelling as we understand it but rather simply a position specific change to avoid the potential confusion mentioned. Now on to some violet things. Joanmary mentioned two things in her most recent post which I want to follow up on. Because I'm new to this forum, I hope members of long standing will forgive me for bringing up topics which may have been discussed in the past. One concerns joanmary's qurey: "A Question: if they are cross fertilized, do they hybridize?" My understanding is that Parma violets cannot be raised from seed. Is this true? For instance, do Parma violets form apomictic seed, seed which would give progeny exactly like the parent? Other sweet violets can be raised from seed and hybridized. The second thing which interests me is this question of violet culture in warm climates. I've seen speculation that what we know as Parma violets may have originated in the mid-East, and that they were cultivated in Arabia long ago. One would think that if they grew in Arabia, they would grow in Florida, certainly northern Florida! I'm curious to hear what the more experienced members of the group have to say about these things.

Hi Lisa It is amazing how many of the eggs do hatch. The last batch had 22 eggs and 19 of them hatched. Only one duck stays till the end and is the only mama. The others are fought with and generally give up after they lay their eggs or they find a new nest for part of the eggs. The one nest we have now had 27 eggs and I am sure there is at least one more in it. I did not go and count eggs today as we had grandkids all day. Where are you located. We have so many wood ducks and I am sure part of it is because of the boxes. They say the female will come back to the area that she was hatched in. I keep telling my hubby we need more boxes, but he says no, he will not ring the pond with duck boxes. Connie