Irina: All my AV's are grown under lights with the exception of those I display around the home. The stands I have are 72 x 48 x 18.. all chrome on caster. I like the fact they are on heavy duty casters.. I can move them around. They come with 6 shelves, but I only use 5 on some and 4 on others. Mini's, semi's and babies are on the 5 shelf and all the standards are on the 4 shelves. Shelves are adjustable to the height you need, as with all the light fixtures. The very top shelf, where there are no fixtures, I use to store all my supplies, also on the floor under the shelves I can store supples too. All my standards are wicked on deli containers that I buy by the case.. some of my show mini's and semi's are wicked on them also. All the others are in holeless trays with set-in egg crates - wicked also. Each shelf can hold 4 trays. I think I will check out the Wal-Mart pots with saucers.. I have an idea that might work.. attached the fishing line to the saucer, place an 8 ounce deli container in the saucer, then put the plant in the pot on top of the deli container. This way there is more water for the reservoir.. might try that to see if it works.. also the Dandy containers are another way that could be used for the hanging trailers. Just put a saucer under the Dandy pot to hold it with the line attached.. this might work also. And they are attractive too. Well I am always thinking of new things to do with plants. My husband says he never knows what I am up too!! Tea

The Forbid label had all sorts of warnings about human toxicity through inhalation, direct skin contact, etc. Birds are extremely sensitive to airborne particles and chemical fumes, even those that don't bother humans (fumes from teflon-coated nonstick pans, for example, can kill birds in a matter of minutes), and in general, it's pretty safe to assume that anything in the air that's harmful to humans will be more harmful to them. I didn't think it was worth the risk, even in a different room. Plus I'd have to worry about getting the overspray on my floor/wall/etc. What I did do is made about a half gallon of Forbid and, with my gloved fingers holding the soil/plant in the pot, dunked each of my plants (I have ~30, so not as many as a lot of people) upside down and swished them around for a few seconds. Saran wrap probably would have helped, but unfortunately I didn't think of it or see your comment in time, but just using my fingers worked relatively well. I did have one plant fall out of the pot and entirely into the miticide, but I fished it out quickly, and after letting it dry out overnight, I repotted it with apparently no harm done. Garbage bags covered with a layer of paper towels worked well to set the plants on while they all dried overnight in my bathroom, with the vent on to get rid of fumes. The miticide got a little dirty by the last few plants, due to some loose soil falling in, but I don't think it impacted its function any. I do need to figure out how to dispose of the leftover, though. However, that would have been a problem even if I had chosen to spray it, since I wasn't sure how much I needed, and it's not stable once mixed up, so I couldn't have saved it to reuse. I currently have it sealed in a cleaned milk jug while I figure out how to responsibly dispose of it. Thank you all for your help and advice while I figured this out! Hopefully this will be the last of the nasty mites!

My thought on it - if you measure light on a bright window - it may be 1100fc for several hours - the rest of the day it is significantly less. When you use your fluorescents for 12 hours - 1100fc will be too much. My lay person explanation is - plants have only so much ability utilize energy for chemical reaction synthesizing organic material. AVs are relatively low light plants. So comes the morning - they are all primed up for absorbing light - certain wave lengths - converting light energy into chemical energy. But they can only do so much per day, the rest of the light is not utilized and is harmful. So the plant starts adjusting - instead of spreading leaves to let the light hit perpendicularly - they change the angle of incidence, hugging the pots - so more light gets reflected, they develop olive tan on the leaves - so they are coping. If the coping is not enough - the damage is done. Since Optimaras are sold for the window growers, not for the small amount of crazies like us - the hobbyist is looking at the shade his hand produces in a day time, not at 6pm. Most Optimaras are dark leaf plants - so in AV vocabulary - it translates to relatively high light need. Your 7000 lux = 650 fc is about right for dark leaf plants for 10-12 hours. I run about 14 for 400fc and 16 hours for 300 fc - and dark leaf starters stretch - and light leaf plants - like Optimara MySensation - hug the pot. Since you aim at close to precision - you need to run one stand with dark leaf plants - and one - with light leaf plats - different times on them -and even on the shelf - you can move the plants to the center or to the sides of the shelf depending on how they react. I would prefer to err on a low side. No damage done. Full time job! I.

I like the simple bloom and how it contrasts with the variegated patterns on the leaves.