Congrats, Midnight. Growing a clivia to blooming size from seed is a great accomplishment. I hope you'll start a separate thread with pics once the blooms are open. Great plants! Socks, Disneyland and I have a lot in common, heh heh, and no, not because I'm "goofy"! I like a lot of the plants they use, and how they create such cheerful/jarring combinations. I just planted a bare root 'Disneyland' rose, which, while not jarring, is certainly perky like the many they have planted there. I've been gardening since I was five years old and have reached the point where I just plant what I enjoy and what makes me smile, so "tastemakers" be damned, lol. The brighter, taller, and stinkier, the more I like my orange marigolds. I actually struggle to find non-dumpy dwarf types. Usually I get them from Select Seeds or Seeds of Change...what about you? Take care, Grant

shawneerie17 May I suggest something? Great to know who you are, and your age. It may be good idea if you sign your post with your name (or a nickname). Most ppl will respond to you with the name to begin with - and not confuse you with your mom. Btw, it is nice to see someone so young here. I hope you will continue with your interest in succulents. There are so many very experienced members here, and posts are full of great answers-tips and great photos. You should try search box on top to get posts on some different topics so you can read some very interesting stuff, and mainly see photos - as the saying goes, picture is worth a thousand words. Personally, I really appreciate if anyone posting takes their time to add photos. Great way to learn. If you have any questions (and I hope you will and ask) that is unrelated to a thread you are reading, it would be best for you to start a new thread. That way you will get some answers. Rina

It's all a kind of madness, I think. I love my plants, but to others they are, well, just plants. And to spend a fortune on them, crazy. A case in point is the variegated Gollum or the Coral aka Skinny Fingers; people spend a lot on them if they can even access them to buy. Grown well, they can be just as nice as other jades, but in the cold light of day, they can be very ugly - variegated Skinny Fingers in particular always reminds me of a bunch of worms; beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder; obviously if we prefer a plant simply because it is rare and hard to find that's nothing to do with horticulture - it has entered the realms of one-upmanship, and may well develop into mania, e.g. tulip mania in the 1600s.

Your plants always look fantastic, begonias very dark and healthy, well fed! Indeed, I think some of the best full and shapely blooms are in the 'Illumination' yellow breeding lines. Soon the first flowers to open on my 'Apricot Shades' and hope they're as nice as the photos. These are developing better than any others, 'Sun Dancers' were a bit pokey, though now kicking into gear, the 'On Tops' are the most NON uniform, I have large, medium and very small plants. All in all, growing from seed is very economical in comparison to purchasing bulbs and plants, really not all that difficult either! Yes, really too bad your very nicely variegated geranium refuses to remain that way, that leaf is gorgeous! Need to get more transplanting done today and sow some French marigolds! Another rose seedling flowering for the first time (right), rather like this one and hope it doesn't pink all out as it matures. The solid pink being the one as shown above, it has really great lasting qualities, bloom here is two weeks old and still fresh and unfaded. Have been chip budding some of my favorite seedling roses and named varieties, sure a great way to utilize rose seedlings as rootstock, those that I'd otherwise discard due to poor quality traits. Weather has really improved of late, though wish this COVID thing would go away, really hate now going shopping and all this social distancing thing, not that I have a problem conforming, rather to the contrary, though it just all feels very awkward and people now so seldom even look one another in the eye. A young chip budded specimen of my 5 ft tall pillar rose, there's just something about this rose!