that and if you can control the weather and cool it off

Terrific little history of these lovely plants, I enjoyed that. My Mom grew an episcia, her's came labeled Chocolate Soldier, for many years. Green leaf, chocolate edges, silver centre. She used to water with weak fertilizer every time and her episcia bloomed almost non stop year round, in a southwest oriented bay window. She'd root plantlets and added them to the pot to refresh it from time to time, when it started to look a bit battered. It was a cheery sight in her window, especially in winter. I had trouble keeping the plantlets I took going, until I started keeping aquariums again. The fish & shrimp tank water that's removed with weekly water changes is loaded with nitrates, among many other things plants like. I use it to water most of my plants. Once I started using fish water, my episcia plantlets took off, growing like weeds. New leaves were so much larger than the old ones, even the flowers were a bit larger than before. Now I have 3 different ones, one has very large flowers, pink with a yellow throat and fringed petals. I am always looking for new ones when I wander through nurseries. They're not all that common to see, which is a shame.

If it makes you feel any better, I have lost pansies this year for the first time too! Not all of them, just the odd ones here and there. Just bought the Professor Mac's (saw BH&G too)as I was wondering what to use on my potted plants that are full of curl grubs too. Also have something eating the pansy flowers - have a lot of slaters, but I have always thought they were relatively harmless and mostly ate decayed matter, not fresh stuff. Any ideas?

I don't know about a John Wayne movie, but an eclipse figures into the plot in a similar way in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, both the book (by Mark Twain) and the 1945 movie with Bing Crosby.