Heys guys, I don't have much experience starting plants but I made an attempt so I would have something to share. I snipped and stuck in a pot 2 pieces of Giant Fantasy coleus and 2 pieces of Inky Fingers coleus, 1 blackberry waffles coleus. I dug up 3 small Kimberly ferns, 3 Portweeds. I attempted to separate a baby from my agave attenuata but I had no idea how to do it and I got barely any roots so I have no idea if it will make it. I have two pieces of epidendrum radicans (i think that is what you guys id'd it as) that I haven't potted because I can't figure out how to do it, but I have been watering them :-> I also have a bucket of bromeliads that I had dug up months ago when I had a tree removed in Stuart. I forgot all about them and they aren't in soil either but they appear to be fine. These are the bromeliads I have two of these NOID plants, might be succulents. These are the epi pieces I don't want any plants since I am moving but I really need a piece of the tree sunflower. Wannarunfaster, can you bring me a piece of the tree sunflower? Would you like anything that I am bringing?

My grand plan to put the frost sensitive plants on the south side of the house/fence to protect them from the wind tunnel created from the neighbor's oak trees met a tactical flaw in the plan: 3 days of bone chilling nights. But at least I found out what plants I added last summer can laugh at the cold... My Achillia, dill, blue-eyed grass, most of my mints, an almond scented plant that I think is a cultivar of a butterfly-bush, and amazingly enough my shrimp plant are all quite happy that the plants next to them are gone and they can stretch their branches easier. I guess they get to stay and I'll try again with their neighbors. My papaya is really really REALLY upset with me, and considering the rotten vegetation smell its giving off, I don't think its going to pull through. But I'll wait an see what happens. I totally forgot to protect my kiwi and it looks equally upset. Hopefully it'll grow back from the ground. My varigated devil's backbone is also very annoyed, but I know from last year it will come back just as strong. The lantana, pentas, and Persian Shield got killed to the ground but I can already see the pentas coming back and assume the others will as well. My in-ground plumeria and ti plants are also upset with me and those concern me the most. The ti will come back since you have to practically put them in a wood chipper to kill them and cutting them back like this encourages bushiness, but it would be nice if they could survive a year or two to fully develop their leaves. My green ti will get 20" leaves if left alone long enough.

I must say, , even growing my Costus barbatus as a pot plant , it's a little too fast growing for indoors, and I have to constantly be dividing the darn thing, and finding lots of large pots to repot the "extras", which outgrow the somewhat smaller pots within just a few months and then need repotting again. However , since mine act more like biennials in nature , with the older shoots dieing back afer less than a year, it's always nice to have newer growth replacing the old canes all the time. Maybe it's just my indoor growing conditions that cause the individual canes to have such a short life, but I suspect that many rhizomatous growing plants have that "determinate" growth habit like cannas , which after flowering always produce new leaders, and rhizomes from which the new flower stalks can grow. It seems the eyes or remnants of the previous years shoots never grow again to reflower a second time. I wonder, if anyone else has thought about this habit or perhaps I'm mistaken about my assessment of their "habits". Another change that my ginger has undergone, is the failure to produce young pups from the older stems as they died back, as they did the first year , while I was growing them. None have produced the "odd" pups that formed along the leaf nodes next to the dieing leaves. Those came out looking a little like new branches or shoots , but quickly produced and ever enlarging bump at the bottom of the shoots right next to the mother stems, and afer a while they'd drop off naturally and would root just like a regular rhizome , when they lay on the soil. Those came in very handy for starting new plants, but perhaps keeping the plants a bit wetter or something else I'm doing since then has proven to change that habit of forming the pups?? Those plants can have some amazing and yet very "difficult" habits to figure out, and I've been gardening for fifty years.

Cherie, I feel exactly the same way about trading with you!!! Thank you so much. I really loved the story about your begonia as well. It brought tears to my eyes, as I was really close to my grandma as well. I also have bunch of other stuff that I will keep you in mind with divisions, as they will grow. I have costus stenophyllus (bamboo costus) already, if that is what you have in mind. I do not have blue ginger. I also have variegated costus amazonicus, ( from you I have the speciocus, which I am extremely happy about). I have terrestrial philodendron gloriosum (which is one of my favorite plant), variegated psitacorum el tigre, criswick heliconia, she kong heliconia, alocasia sinuatis, ALOCASIA MACRORHIZA 'LUTEA', and bunch more rare plants. I also have lot of anthuriums, but will have to work out how to propagate them yet. My son is sleeping, so I am off gardening. Keep in touch, and any time your are in the area, please, stop by or come for our garden play date (which my husband and I decided to make it a annual thing). Still have to work out the timing better, as I don't want to take away from Ricky's. Veronika