Hard question to answer because it depends on so many things. How many of each plant do you want to have? How are you going to space your plants? How will you feel if the germination is low on some plants and not on others? How big are the seeds? What type of seeds are they? Are you going to plant anything in pots/various size containers? If you have more than you want will you be able to give some away or attend or have a spring plant swap? Are you "heavy handed or light handed" with your seed sowing? I've been WS for 5 years, this coming year will be #6 so from experience I try to plan this way. I do host an annual spring plant swap, so that does, pretty much, take care of the extra seedlings if I have any. I also like to cram my beds full of plants and sow with the HOS method as well and make bold statements with my plantings. I also do quite a bit of pots/containers as well and I cram those full as well. Generally though, it depends on the seeds I am sowing, what type of plant it is and how many of that plant I want and how I want to plant them. It will also depend on if the seeds are mixed colors and I'm trying to get as many different colors of the plant as possible. It also will depend on how large the plant will get and/or how much of a spread the plant will be at full growth. Since some plants will grow very tall, but not wide, I will plant them in clumps of quite a few plants together to make a bold statement. Sometimes as many as 20 plants all right together. Zinnias are an example of those. The small orange flowers in this picutre are zinnia old mexico and that is a clump planting of 10 plants. Other plants that will grow tall and single stem, like sunflowers, I will just sow enough to be sure that I have the number of plants I want and then some extras just to be safe. Tiny seeds like petunias, violas, schizanthus, balloon plant, coleus and the like, I just sow those in containers and the more the merrier for me. I cram them into containers and beds with the HOS method and let them do their thing. And this is what I get mixed petunias nicotiana viola schizanthus and chinese forget me nots There are seeds I have that I know are not good germinators and I just sow all that I have and hope for the best. It all really comes down to how much of each plant you want, how you plan to plant them, and what your planting style is and how crammed you want your beds to be. The safest thing is to always so more than what you really truly want to have. That way you can be sure that you have at least as many plants as you want to have. "Murphy's Law" always comes into play with gardening. You know that if you want 5 of a plant and only sow 5 seeds, you will be lucky to get 1 0r 2 seedlings, but if you plant 10 seeds to be safe that you get the 5 your want, you know that all 10 will germinate. That's the safest way to sow your seeds. Always so more than you will need to be sure you have exactly what you want. Fran

Thanks for answering Awanda, my goodness indeed, words practically fail me here, I can barely imagine! I will say that I haven't looked at yr. pix in some time, but when I did they showed absolutely beautiful plants, all (don't I recall you grow more than a few Sans. as well?) Everything looked so well grown & all examples to aspire to. I envy yr. circumstances, space, greenhouse and most importantly, yr. growing talent!!! I've got abt 35 (4 brand new), abt 5 duplicates. Most of mine are smallish as I'm in an apmt: I put up a 3-tiered shelf along the upper wall in my kitchen, perpendicular to my west windows to house the bulk of this collection. Gosh if I could grow outdoors, I'd probably go completely bananas w/ it. Mine too are mostly cuttings from friends, either here at GW or local Indoor Gardening Society friends. That's the only advantage of cuttings into smallish plants, one can grow LOTS of them ;>). I too echo the sentiment that friends here at GW & specifically when this Hoya Forum began, have been extraordinarily generous both w/ their cuttings & comraderie! I have had the ocassional bloom, mostly on new cuttings from friends here, once in a while while they're still cuttings rooting in water. I've got to get a magnifying glass to check & be sure, but think a small Kentiana cutting is putting on 2 spurs, too small to be sure yet -- crossing my fingers! I am experimenting w/ watering them less often as a collector I just bought from in FLA, suggests it's not their age that promotes blooming, but rather letting them go pretty dry btwn watering (more so than I'd been doing). So I've just swtiched from watering 1 x per wk, to once every 2 wks, w/ some misting for those I think might find that too dry -- too early to tell. We shall see what happens ... (PG) Karen

Been blessed to have met lots of kt'ers. Nita, husband, Bobby, her daughter, spent two days in my area, and the same week, Donna OH, and sister spent a weekend with me. Then spent few days in OH with Donna and her sister. KT get together here in Al, at LK Grace home, and got kissed by Tadpole in Atlanta with great KT'er's. Spent a week with Gabby, LK Grace, Mexico Beach, FL, at a rented cottage. Linda and I meet often for lunch. Jae, Tennessee, and I had an awesome lunch, years ago. Delightful. Moni calls once in a while :o) Been to Texas, Iowa for KT get together Liz GA and I share the same birthday. Shared an awesome cruise, two in fact with Carole SW Fl Know I am not including lots others, I've met and proud to know I've met so many. Here's picture of when Kathleen stopped by for lunch, with her two. This is picture of her daughter, Kathleen, me and my grandson.

Terilyn wrote, "My mom and dad had a brother and sister marry." And Pekemom wrote, "3 of my Polish aunts married 3 Italian brothers. One of my mother's brothers married one of my father's sisters." This was actually quite common in the 1800s and early 1900s. In our family tree, we have several instances of siblings from one family marrying siblings from another family. There are also instances where one spouse died and the surviving spouse then married a sibling of the original spouse. And, yes, there are a couple of instances where two unrelated people with the same surname married. JoanEileen wrote, "My cousin Tommy Kelly married a woman in New York State. They divorced, she moved back home to Florida, and married a man named----Tommy Kelly!" Offhand, I can think of two instances in our family tree where someone married, was widowed, and then married someone with the same first and middle names, but a different surname.