People seem to be talking a lot about new Aglaonemas. BBS's have radically expanded their house plant selections beyond the very basics, which has been quite a boon for people out in the boonies. Similarly, it also seems like the wholesalers are making efforts to make a much wider variety of plants available to a much wider audience. Like new varieties of old favorites like Pothos and Sans, and other plants that probably would already be old standbys but just haven't been available as house plants before. Someone has to trek through the wilderness of Ecuador or Malaysia or Borneo to gather these things, then propagate successfully for years to make something new publicly available, even if the plant was growing there for centuries. Seems like someone has been working on that for a while and the results are starting to show up in droves. Or maybe it's just as simple as the BBS's realizing people want more than Pothos and Sans. What do you people think from your view of things? If you browse Exotic Angel or Costa Farms, I think most people will see a lot of plants you've never seen before, so many that were never in any of the famous house plant books. I think mini/fairy gardens will end up being this decade's "macrame hangers" but it's hard to tell if it's just my new interest, causing me to notice every instance, or if it really is suddenly much more prolific. These darn "self-watering pots" are everywhere. Beware!

It's good to be back. It's been a long year, like a roller-coaster. Our new home will definitely have a bigger yard - that's one of our "must haves" (the other, at my DHs request, is a real garage and a driveway that doesn't slope more than a degree or two). I have a lot of catching up to do here! Laurel

Hi Leafie and welcome to GardenWeb, In regard to your question, for me at least, it's kind of hard to give you a good answer. I've never grown those plants but I know they require very little light. I've read that most house plants do well with 50 to 100 foot-candles for 16 hours a day. Some shade loving foliage plants require less than that. Your CFL bulbs are daylight bulbs, which is good. However they're only rated at 800 lumens (luminous flux output). In order to get 50 foot-candles of light intensity from one of those bulbs, it would have to be only about 15 or 16 inches away from the plant. And that's with no shade blocking the bare bulb, such as a desk lamp might do. Of course, if the room has some natural light then you wouldn't have to supply near as much artificial lighting. How large are the plants, would one light be enough to adequately cover all parts of the plants? How far from the plants will your light be? How many hours a day will the light be left on? Just too many questions to give you a good answer :-) Hopefully something here might be helpful or at least give you some ideas. Art

I had such problem my first year growing tomatoes. Actually, I left for three days and come back to them all laying on their side. I was devastated and thought of throwing them all away. But got an advice - to buy 2 gallon pots, soil, take the bottom leaves and all shooters away and plant them in a big pot laying down their stems in spiral in the pot the way only about a foot is above the soil soil. There was nothing to loose(other than money, ha-ha)) and I did it. The most challenge was to plant them later outside with a such root ball, but they grew so many roots, that the root ball stayed together. Just do not water for few days before setting them outside to have them almost dry for replanting. It will make it lighter and easy to work with. I still needed second person help to hold the greens, while I am taking roots with both hands. It was great tomato crop that year).