Rebecca, I enjoyed reading about your adventures. Good for you, learning Spanish. I know it too and it sure comes in handy here in Southern California, and for my job. Michael, try holding down the option key while typing the letter e, then letting go and typing the letter you want accented. For ñ hold down the option key while typing n, then let go and type n again. información señor

The first one is Fritillaria persica, Persian Fritillary. The bulb companies sell a white one, too, but it's not cheap. WW

Rosie, Lets see if I can keep my train of thought on the tracks long enough to produce the answer you need. First, in dealing with my two plants I am increasingly of the opinion that there is no real right or wrong where Clivia is concerned. It seems to become more what you want to do with them. I have two plants. I was given three seedlings in 4" pots, the first to bloom never did get the blooms to come out of the axials of the leaves, so after three tries it was out.....out of the house into the trash. I am all but absolutely certain that the three plants I got were from seed off the same plant...basically a selfing of a single plant. Both my plants have blooms that are for all practical purposes identical to each other. The plant habit is basically the same, with one glaring difference. One of my plants throws off baby plants left and right.....The other plant has NEVER produced a pup. I relate this little bit of information simply because it sounds like you have a plant that is very prone to producing baby plants, and that will have a lot to do with how you probably should treat that plant. Packing three of those "sardenes" back into your "can" is fine from the standpoint of producing a beautiful display of blooms, but when you consider all three of those plants are genetically the same, when each of them produces three or four babies sometime in the not too distant future, you truly will have a house full of you know what.......Clivia. I generally wait for my large plant to produce tree or four pups, then I repot it and strip it of all its little ones, and return it to the same pot.....alone.....☺ I don't get as many blooms, but then I also don't get as large a disposal problem either. This happens about every three or four years, which Is about the time, I figure, the potting soil needs changing. I know lots of folks let their plants go dormant in the winter.....reduce temps, light, and water, and let the plant just exist through the winter. Here In central SC we are too cold in winter to let the plants stay outside in winter, and I never wanted to put my plants in the basement, so I kept them with all the rest of my small collection of assorted plants in a south facing huge plate glass window shaded with oak trees. The oaks are bare of leaves in winter, so the plants get dappled shade produced only by the bare limbs of the large trees. My two Clivia love this winter home, and grow all winter. I continue to water and feed them through the winter, and they seem to love it. They demonstrate their approval of the treatment by rewarding me with two bloomings per year. Rarely has either failed to do this. I am told often that they only bloom once a year, and my response is that in the beginning neither me nor my Clivia knew they were suppose to bloom but once a year, and now that the precedent has been established we neither want to change. I believe the Clivia do bloom better when they are a bit pot bound, so I do keep mine in slightly smaller pots than I might have another kind of plant in. There is nothing scientific in this statement, just a gut feeling I have. As long as they want to bloom twice a year, I'll gladly keep them in smallish pots. I repot my plants when they have been in the same dirt for several years, the pot is full of plants (plural) and when I stick my finger down into the soil, all I seem to feel is roots. Oh, I also begin to have difficulty keeping the plants watered. The more plants, the more they drink. As for repotting your plant now, I think I would wait probably at least a year before I did that.....several reasons.....first, two potting shocks back to back might not be good. Second, you might not have a nice grassy spot to do the work this time of year. Third, what ARE you going to do with two more plants? and fourth, I do understand that neither you or your Clivia are getting any younger, and those pots do get heavier each year. In my house, neither me or the Clivia are getting any younger or lighter. Oh, I also have a Cactus....mine is a Thanksgiving Cactus.......no, actually its a Thanksgiving/early spring cactus. hummmmm that cactus and the Clivia both live as neighbors all winter.....you think there is a conspiracy there anyplace? Actually, I just believe that plants are about as reluctant to live by the "rules" as we humans sometimes are. Yours are really nice blooms.....A bit more yellow in the center than mine, and I like that. I am kinda sorta looking for a green, thinking that it might be interesting to cross with one of my plants. But old men have to be a bit wary of long term projects.....I catch myself contemplating the purchase of green bananas at times. Seriously, I hope this helps.....If not, ask again...you probably won't get a short answer, but I will be glad to answer. Bill

I got sweet potatoes for 33-cents a pound and stocked up. They may go as low as 29-cents a pound after Christmas at Wal-Mart - at least they have in the past. I make microwave sweet potato chips with them, as well as a plethora of other dishes. Russet potatoes, usually a big loss-leader - BOGOF - didn't materialize this year. I would stock-up and make freezer mashed potatoes with them. Too bad... We're at the end of our potatoes from the garden.