Hi - let us try to discuss things in order. 1. Suckers - some plants sucker more than others - that's Maui for you. Try to remove suckers as soon as they get their nose out. You can take a sharp pencil and scrape them off. You do not need to grow and root all of them. 2. Size of the violet. I am talking about the diameter, not the circumference. C = "pi" x D, where "pi" is 3.1415 So if we have a violet with the diameter of 16 inches - the circumference is over 50 inches. I read in old African Violet magazine issues that people managed to grow plants of 24 and more inches diameter. Imagine these monsters. Now people usually grow smaller violets - just because you can have more varieties on the same shelf space. The are more than 14000 registered varieties of violets - so you can imagine that there are microminis as well as extra large ones. Your DaVinchi is an average standard. You just imagine what your mother would say if you put a couple of real biggies on your drawer. Something like it is what - rhubarb? 3. Light issues. AVs need certain amount of light - for example 800 foot candles for 12 hours a day. Big greenhouses with light fixtures over their shelves can control the amount of light and the time it is on to get their plants blooming all together at a certain date - may be Mother's day. We cannot control the natural light that well. So - if you put it on a windowsill at the east looking window - it will be OK unless you have trees growing. Or you can put them near the southern window but you need the sheer curtain to reduce the light. You see - the exact foot candles and exact time is lost. You cannot say that you get exactly the same amount of light as in a house 2 streets down because the window may be different or the house is looking south west instead of south. Usually they need to be very close to the windows, not to the wall - because the amount of light decreases proportionally to the square of the distance from the window. But to know exactly what you get - you need to get the light meter and see how many footcandles you get on your plant shelf. If it is too dark - they will grow lots of leaves with long stems - but they will not bloom at all or may be just a bit. While if you create them the conditions that they like - they bloom 10 months out of 12. I hope I didn't bore you to sleep. What I was trying to convey - is that growing AVs to some extent is like cooking. You need to use the basic recipe. You can vary it a bit, and it will be OK, but too much - and it will be something different, may be total failure. Good luck and keep growing Irina

Thanks to an earlier thread on cameras that bobky had here, I bought a new Kodak Z740 which just released this year. It's a 5.0 megapixel with 10x optical zoom (effective range is 38mm - 380mm). I too needed a new camera and wanted a zoom to capture my little hummer visitor from a distance. I also wanted to be able to vary the shutter speed to capture something like a mid-flap (as opposed to a blur of beating wings) and this camera, as well as many of the equivalent digitals allow that (eg., I can set my shutter speed to 1/1000th of a second). The 2 drawbacks that I've seen with this camera however are: 1.) the camera is a bit slow to start up (ie., it going through its "splash screen" when first turned on, IMHO wastes valuable time where I am unable to shoot) and 2.) the zoom is a bit slow to engage using the rocker - with the very furthest part of the zoom being digital it appears, which moves in increments as you press and hold the rocker, further slowing it down). Of course for general picture-taking, the above is actually minor or even moot since the subjects are generally stationary and speed isn't necessarily of the essence. However for those like myself with only a solitary hummer who will only stay to nectar for perhaps 10 - 15 seconds at a time at most and they're gone - getting the camera up and ready quickly, let alone getting the hummer framed and in focus quickly, is a critical thing. Overall, the auto-focus is pretty good on the camera so once the hummer is framed, I can usually get a good focus lock - even at the 300 mm zoom and without the need for a special stabilizer (thanks in part to the ergonomics of the camera). I am still playing around with the various settings (need to work on some of the exposure ones as it will often over-expose the sky in order to capture a normal exposure of my shaded balcony - but that might be a function of a setting that I need to use). But overall, I'm happy with it, particularly since it is easily half the weight of my previous digital - a Kodak 3400 2.0 megapixel 3x zoom. I was able to capture my first clear shot of my little female from almost 25ft away. Ie., I managed to get this from the comfort of my sofa in my livingroom by zooming across my diningroom, through a window, then diagonally across my balcony to the rail where the feeder hangs: Because of the resolution, I could then use a graphics program to cut out a portion of the whole photo to get an even better look without much bluring: From a much closer position from the window, looking about 6ft away, I could capture this: Anyway... Good luck with your camera hunt! :-)

These are all Kodak moments and BETTER. I like the B&W, Mac, it gets your attention in a sea of color. The perfect lacy design of the ferns compliments the streaked hosta leaves. Funn's moss shot....love it too--and of course Hostanista is passionate for "drops", this does show the rainbow of sunlight diffracted through the water droplet, quite nice to frame. Presently I've printed a lot, to send to family who wonder what I've been up to lately. Not framing anything yet because we'll be emptying the house for this upcoming remodel job after Labor Day. I'm SO ready for that to be OVER, so I can put my house back together! Even though I took several thousand photos and have over 21gigabyte uploaded to Flickr, I still miss the prettiest moments such as you folks take. I think I focus on the problems and the documentation and not the artistry. Very shortsighted of me, since for the longrun, it will be the beauty that endures and is obvious. My EYE sees the beauty, but when I look for photos which capture that, they are absent. A good video slideshow, or a slowhand short tour of the garden might be a better solution. For me anyway. I still have time to capture the garden before it goes down hill for the fall. But next year? Well, I'll be ready ready ready to rock and roll come Maytime. Then another one in June. Promise me you will try to capture a video of your gorgeous gardens? I'd love to see them.

Maggie Sue, thanks so much for the encouragement. I feel a lot better after looking at the pictures in the photo shop. I didn't take anymore today but must get click happy tomorrow. I finished sewing my Bento Box quilt top. Sharon F. posted a picture of a block and I went from there. I really like it so will flick a pic tomorrow. I don't have a computer or printer... it will be getting the pictures from the camera over to Photobucket. Then I will be okay. I have to do this on my DD's computer at her house. I didn't get a user's manual but I found some info at Kodak web that is usefull so I need DD to print some of it out for me to use as reference. I had to call my Sasktel support people because of some E-mail problems. The nice fellow I talked to asked me if there was anything else he could help me with today. I said I have this new digital camera...do you know anything about them. He chuckled...no, not today. I thought it was worth trying!