Nick and I are going to hit it today too. He wants a new CP and then he wants to to go to Hollywood Studios, LOL, but he's still just 10. Did anyone get anything good? Was anyone selling carnivores? Last year at all the plant sales I bought gingers for under the Oak and Chinese Lantern tree on the border of my garden. While I was in India the neighbor cut down the Lantern tree and trimmed back the oak severly well over my yard. I probably had $300 worth of gingers under it that are all going white with sunburn. That was my only safe spot to grow them. But I don't want another 'enemy' neighbor. I already don't get along with my south neighbor. when he move in (we live in a circle cul-de-sac) he didn't know where the property line was and he cut down all of my plants in a flower bed including a papaya, a bay leaf, and a bougie. Then he argued about the property line! Like it had magically moved just because he moved in. Oh well.

We just use a (clean) shovel- find a spot on the mother plant that will be easy to get to donor- it should have at least one mother stem and a decent sized (12 in) baby stem. Then place the shovel between the mother plant and donor plant and quickly and cleaning step on the shovel to separate them. Then dig the roots around the donor and pull it out. If I can get a root ball and not bother the roots too much, it is better. As long as it has roots and some green stem/leaves, treat it like a plant. If it doesn't have roots, cut the stem and treat it like a rhizome (in a pot, little water until you see growth).

Hi- Not that I am an expert in anyway, but this might get you started... The rostata may set seed (if you have hummingbirds). With heliconias, the seed will be in the colorful part of the flower- it will probably stick out a bit. It is ready to pick when it is blueberry blue. Wipe the blue part away, plant the whitish seed inside right away. It will take months to sprout. I have not tried rostrata seeds yet, but have a number of seedlings from other varieties, so it is possible. Heliconia seeds are most viable the fresher they are. I have had a lot of luck with ginger seeds too. The gingers will set seed- where the seeds are located depends on the variety. Torch ginger seed pods are easy to see, (big pods right on the flower head), other types you have to look around inside the dead flower for them. Of the 4 varieties I have tried, all have sprouted in 1 month. I assume fresher is better, but I tried 1 type after the flower head was dried and they still sprouted. Hope this helps, Gwenn

A new plant that I acquired is a great cut flowers. The plant is called Jatropha, they didn't give me the scientific name, just the genus. I bought the last two plants, as well as the two sample cuttings of flowers. A week and a half later, the flowers is still looking good, and I placed it outside where it recieve afternoon sunshine! Here is one of the two plants I bought: Perhaps I'll take a picture of the two flowers tomorrow.