Heck if I know Cynthia. Most of mine that seem to survive (but never quite thrive) are in partial shade. The one in the pic was planted one year where it was mostly sun, then a wisteria took off, so by the next year the caladium were put in its shade. My uninformed guess would be that they are one of those plants that need "full sun"... unless you are talking about TEXAS sun. hehe. Then something like part sun works better.

I have, and it's a lot of fun. Beware though - it's not just some peaceful floating experience. The burners to keep the air hot are LOUD. It's incredibly noisy when they fire them! You will be standing the whole time, and the basket is pretty cramped. The best times to go up are usually very early morning.

Your chair will be wonderful to see when you finish. DD and I stayed at Hotel Monaco in Portland, OR some time back and enjoyed seeing balloon style chairs there in a part of their extended foyer. I had not remembered exactly what theirs looked like, (just had fun sitting in them), but this photo below was one from their website...and it's a much smaller style and has more open arms, but still with the covered top. I love the fabric you're planning to use and think that will be so great looking. BTW, thanks for the info about Joann's since I've been eyeing a home dec fabric there, so this wkend will be a great time to get it! Can hardly wait to see your finished chair.

A couple years after the article Sharon posted was published. This was published. I can’t link to it since I am searching for these articles through my workplace at Caltech, and you would get a broken link, but here is abstract copied below. It seems that an important consideration for a banker plant used to host the predator mites is “tuft domatia”, which are little chambers on the leaves that are meant to house the beneficials. The plants provide little hidey-houses along with pollen :-) The predator mite Amblyseius swirskii is an omnivore, eating both pollen and other mites, thrips, whitefly etc. Selecting an ornamental pepper banker plant for Amblyseius swirskii in floriculture crops. By: Avery, PB et al. Abstract: Preference of phytoseiid mite, Amblyseius swirskii (Athias-Henriot) was assessed on four cultivars of ornamental pepper banker plant candidates; Red Missile (RM), Masquerade (MA), Explosive Ember (EE) and Black Pearl (BP) for potential control of pestiferous insects in floriculture. Significant differences in cultivar preference by A. swirskii was observed in choice experiments whether the test was pre- (with pollen) or during bloom. Overall, female mites laid more eggs when pollen was provided as a food source. The number of tuft domatia per cultivar leaf appeared to positively influence host preference in the choice plant tests pre-bloom. In addition, cultivar RM had the highest mean number +/- A SEM of tuft domatia per leaf (5.1 +/- A 0.3) and motiles per plant (4.0 +/- A 1.2), followed by MA, EE and BP. In choice tests on blooming plants, A. swirskii showed preference for both cultivars RM and MA compared to EE. These experiments indicated that the number of tuft domatia and availability of pollen can influence the host preference of A. swirskii for an ornamental pepper banker plant cultivar. Results from this study will help growers, researchers, educators and extension personnel in understanding the plant phenology promoting adoption of suitable banker plants for managing greenhouse and landscape insect pests.