Hi everyone. I just joined this great forum and have gotten some very good tips from you guys by reading a lot of the posts about certain houseplants that I have. So thanks a lot for the great tips and advice provided! As far as my favorite houseplants, it's really hard to pick one or two since I've got quite a few. But, the ones that mean the most to me are : 1) Aglaonema (Chinese Evergreen) 'Crete' - I picked this one up at a local garden center fairly recently and it's supposedly new cultivar. It may be one of the most beautiful foliage plants I've seen. It's green leaves are bordered in a beautiful bright red and splashed with the red color also. Just exquisite! I keep it by my fireplace in the den and it loves it's shady spot. My Polyscias plants are also among my most favorites. I have a 3 foot tall Parsley Aralia that is amazing. It's in a beautiful oriental-looking pot in my game room/Japanese garden. I also have 2 medium sized Ming Aralias that I love, one of which I found at Home Depot a few weeks ago, the other I got from a really nice houseplant store in a town nearby. The one I found at HD was the last one and a bit scraggly looking but is putting on some nice new growth. It has four main trunks so I'm sure with proper care, next spring it will explode with foliage *fingers crossed*. I also have a small, variegated Balfour that is very beautiful. It may be in my top 3 or 4 plants. Surprisingly, I found that one at a grocery store (again the last one!) Then I have 2 small variegated Parsley Aralias that are very nice and bushy. I absolutely love Aralias, even if they are a little temperamental. 3) Another favorite of mine is a large 7 foot tall Amate Schefflera in my den. It fills one corner with it's huge umbrella leaves and looks awesome. I've always loved Scheffs. I have 2 Amates and about 4 Arboricolas! 4) My last favorite plant (out of 4) would have to be this Jade that I've had for quite some time but it's shape is what I love so much about it. It has one trunk that splits into two that drape down on each side and curve back up. It's very Bonsai-like. I love it. I'll try to include some pics if anyone is interested. Glad to be able to join this forum! Cheers! -Chris

I agree with Irina's comment about Exotic Angel's plant labels. I picked up a Hoya Lacunosa and the tag literally read " I go by the name House Plant, give me medium light." Lol what a joke. I bought Nematanthus Corticola because the long tendril-like blooms look a lot like Nepenthes which I used to grow in high school. Literally did nothing. I repotted it when I received it in its 2.5" pot into a 4" pot and it grew one small, bright green leaf during the summer here in NC then when I brought it inside for the winter with my orchids it sulked. The most stubborn thing I've ever seen so I threw it outside in my garden and just bought another one. I'm hoping it was just a bad clone/cutting. The same thing happened to my AF 'Cirelda' years ago. This time around I think I'll skip the perlite in place of sphagnum moss mixed with vermiculite and a standard soiless mix. Being epiphytic, I mixed the aforementioned Nematanthus with small fir bark chips and potting soil. Maybe the wood was eating up all the N before I gave it a chance to be released back in the soil.

Hi David, I've been growing A. garrettii longer than anyone around here; but I've always had it in a pot. It is quite hardy though. It survives normal winters pretty well, taking upper 20's for brief periods. It survived with a lot of damage when it got down to 18 in 1990. But, I found with nematanthus, as an example, that they don't really do well in the ground. Being epiphytes they really like a very light potting mix. I use my standard mixes, such as peat, perlite, and vermiculite. So, I couldn't say if you will have luck with it in a mix that contains our California clay. It might be OK though. But I am surmising that being similar in growth habit to nematanthus that it might sulk if the soil is too heavy. But, you can always plant it out and grow it in a pot from cuttings. It roots easily. It is a very tough easy potted plant for bright shade. It grows up into about an 8-10 inch pot specimen, and gets covered with bright red flowers in around August and September. It is actually a good show plant for gesneriad society shows at that time of year. The SF show will be in late August--I should put down cuttings of garrettii for our acompaning plant sale. How I got my garrettii is a mildly interesting story. Back in the late 70's my friend Bart had a commercial greenhouse out in Concord, growing gesneriads to sell wholesale to plant shops. He had garrettii in the greenhouse, but it got a bad case of mealie bugs and he became frustrated with it. So, he tossed it out--literally. He would get mad at a plant and do things like this. In this case, it was late summer or fall, and he just took the hanging pot, wire hanger and all, and tossed it from the door of the greenhouse onto a pile of discarded plants, many still in their pots. I was visiting many months later, at the end of winter and he mentioned that this plant was on the pile and it looked like it was still alive. I went over and found this very healthy and very clean plant. It had survived on winter rains, and the cool weather took care of the mealies. I took it home and have had it ever since. That was how I found out it was hardy. I am fairly certain that the plants you saw for sale, came originally from cuttings I passed around. I saw it too, last week at Hortica Gardens, coming from Monterey Bay Nursery (wholesale). In outdoor conditions it makes more of an upright bushy plant for a hanging basket. It can also be grown without hanging. When Bart grew it in greenhouse conditions it hung down quite a bit. I have a few other somewhat hardy aeschynanthus, all growing in bright shade outdoors--gracilis and parasiticus. I grow them along side my nematanthus (goldfish plants). By the way, I also rescued a pot of Nematanthus wettsteinii from Bart's pile, which is how I discovered that nematanthus were cold hardy in our sub-tropical climate. To this day, even the venerable Sunset Western Garden Book still describes nematanthus as being houseplant/greenhouse subjects. They need to update their info. They make the best outdoor basket plants here.

Polygonum, I did get a start of the Zauschneria for you, but it's very small. Keep it in the pot till the end of October, stick it in the ground, and by the end of next summer I think you'll be shocked! I'm also gonna dig up and pot some before I do it in, so if they make it over winter, you can get another, bigger one then! Also have the mint cuttings for you. With the aloe and other succulents, just bring a start for whatever you can easily get a couple pieces or leaves off of. They all sound like fun! The black aloe sounds especially cool! I'd especially be interested in a couple little stem pieces or leaves from the tri-color jade. I tried that one one time before and couldn't get it to go! Would love to try it again--I think they're so pretty! (I'll pass on the Kalanchoes you have for now. Need some practice on the "regular" kind first!) GardenFiend, the only thing I'm taking dibs on this time is the chocolate mint cuttings--and I have some marked for you. Having just gotten back from vacation, and with all the computer problems I've had since I got home, I just don't have time to keep track of all the other stuff. Since there aren't gonna be many people at this one, chances are you'll be able to get the things you want the most in the first two rounds of picking. I'll have a few packs each of four of my different sedums this time--unrooted cuttings, with instructions if you need them. Also will have one of my Semps in pots, 4 of them I think it turned out to be, and one of them in bags, unrooted--so 2 different kinds. Most of my semps got really bashed in from the hail this spring, and had to pull a bunch out. Then I pulled out all the ones that bloomed--more than normal, and then I was pulling out chicks for a few people over the summer, and now there aren't enough left to give away for the time being. Depending on how well they recover over winter and early next spring, I MAY have more at the Spring Swap, or probably the Fall Swap if not then. I was thinking earlier today that if the people on RMG that are into them would each buy one or two new varieties, when we started swapping them, we could ALL wind up with a bunch of new varieties. Kind of like a chain letter, plant style! I'm also bringing some extra packs of the chocolate mint cuttings. Sorry you can't make it this time, Misty. But--I wouldn't pass up a chance to go boating on Granby and to see the Colorado Gold either! Happy anniversary! Have fun! Gotta go! I finally got my pot luck dish done, but still have a LOT to do! See you all tomorrow, Skybird