that's a very interesting subject. i have mostly tropicals indoors and some go out to ultra bright NE balcony outside. lots of variegation. i think indoor culture is quite different from outdoor and season to season and latitude - just all very complicated! what i found is that a lot of time recommendations for these plants are from southern growers ... for outdoors! (FL). bright shade in summer in fl = bright dappled sun on the window sill for me in NYC. seasonal light differs a lot too. so while i put my plants in some early sun, NE bright shade(no sun) outside in summer, in winter they stay in dappled sun west window or even full sun west. one example is crotons: early summer outside in 3-4 hrs of sun cooler temps is great! but then they really color up in october too - no direct sun, 60-65F. while hot temps over 80F and direct hot sun in july -aug totally bleach out the leaves. but indoors west partial 3-4 hr sun in winter does wonders for them. caladiums are similar to that. they green in too much shade and bleach out in too much hot sun. while take 4-5 hrs of direct eastern sun indoors in summer. i have many more: stromanthe triostar, alocasia african mask, etc - that are strictly indoors. they are supposed to be in bright shade only, but i keep them all in dappled , even direct early/late sun to maintain color/good growth indoors in winter and sheers filtered sun in summer.

Hi, Toni. I know what you mean about not having enough space between shelves. Most shelf only can fit the pot not the pot+plant. The distance in between the shelves is not large enough. The shelf I bought comes with 6 shelves, but I only put 3 on to have a larger space about 2' in between each other. Although the top shelve will not get much sun. I can put some trailing plants on it so they hanging down to catch some sun ray, I hope. I am going to put a 4' long floracent light fixture right under each shelves to provid additional light. I will be careful when I work with electric. It is more dangerous than just put a wood stand together. The nails are for the wood light fixture stand. I originally was going to go with the PVC pipe. but it cost more to buy PVC pipes unless you have scraped PVC pipes on hand. To put one stand in each room, I need put together more than just one so it is more economical to buy those leftover wood to build them . Don't you love Menard? I go there almost every week... Check out their fall plants sale... their pots price is great... their cleaning suppliers... small applicance price is great after rebate... They start to carry food items now... I bought watermelon, apple, onion, potaotes there... strange , isn't it? Behind every visible color is the frequency of wave. The full Spectrum light is a light that is designed to provid full range or closer to full range of sun ray wave from warm color at lower end of freqency to whiter color at the end of higher frequency. It also extended into part of invisible wave such as UV which natural sun has. The plants growth, in general, responds to the light frequency they get, or requires certain light frequency to trigger either flower bud, fruiting, or just grow leaves. I am kind of lazy to figure out which plant needs which ( thinking about having to remember at end of the season and lable the light for next year before put in storage boxes... lot of works) so I just bought full spectrum to all the plants. But if you know what you want grow, just want grow foilage, or want grow fruits in the winter... a targeted color range grow light might work better. you can find most of common size and wattage lights at Menards. Again, I love Menards. I wish I could clean my plants before I bring them in. In reality, I just have too many pots to clean them all. I in general just inpsect the plants and outside the pots to make sure no slug hiding somewhere. I have a cat, so I can't put any ant poison out in the yard or inside house. The ant is a big problem for me. I do not mind spiders, especailly the jumping spider that doesn't wave web and it eat insects , It is very good at controling mites in winter time. I want them to come inside with the plants... My neighbor put his garbage can outside, and the rotten chicken smell draw quite few flies near and I saw the jumping spider got one of the flies in my citrus tree, amazing... I got the Fish Emulsion tip from one of your posting, thanks again for sharing this secrat. I spray my plants every week on schedule. squirrels seem dislike the fishy smell. I am going to pay closer attention to moth to see if moth likes the fish smell on my fruit tree leaves or not. Interestingly, I have never had mealybug problem, knock the wood. I have seen scale, aphis, mites, sometimes whitefly in the past but have never seen mealybug on my plants. I think I have parasitic wasps live somewhere nearby that takes care a lot of my bug problems. Yes, soap, garlic, hot pepper... all works or does not completely work ... neem oil also works for mealybug Toni, I must say that you grow your plants in much scientific way, no wonder your plants look so gorgeous, both yours and Mike's. I've never used a hygrometers just for plants. My plants get whatever the humidity I got in the house. I am probably lucky that I don't have a very humidity sensitive plant in my collection YET. Boiling some hot water certain a very good way to increas room humidity. It is a very cost effective and practical way. You are a such creative person. I hope you are willing to share more tips with me in the future. In general, I don't fertilize my plant, but my rule of the thumb is that if the plants are "sleeping", no need for food;If they are awake, actively growing, feed a little, water a little. Some of my plants are in and out now, but I am hoping I don't have to bring them all in for the winter till Oct./Nov. When are you going to move all your plants in? Mike, sounded like you and Toni is having a fun friendly competition. Frankly, you both grow beautifull, productive plants beyond the "zones". I certainly agree the FE is one of big secret for such lushes, healthy, pest free plants besides loving , tender care, fertilizer, and everything else ... I wish I could just toss my plant through the windows... The heavy ones might toss me through windows instead. How did you manage to keep people from steal your plants in your drive way while you are at work? My neighborhood is relative safe... we don't need to lock doors when we are out shipping. So far, I put some large , not attactive plants in my drive way but I am worried if I put nicer, blooming plants there, someone walks by and see the plants in the drive way, and might decide to take few pots with them home. As you mentioned the bug with a lot of legs, Do you know the bug called rolypoly, I thought this is its name, I might spelled it wrong...the gray bug lives under the pots. It curve into a ball when you touch it... is it a good bug, bad bug , or do-no-harm bug?

I like Sun Sugar better than Sungold. I've grown both, though not in the same year. Last year it was Sungold (which has outproduced every other cherry I've grown in the past couple years). The first ones of the season had an odd flavor, then in the middle of the season the flavor improved, but later on either I got tired of them or the flavor got odd again, so I started cooking with them instead of eating them in the garden. I don't think I'll grow it again -- too many other tomatoes to try! When I grew it 3 years ago, in a sunnier location, it produced even more and I think I liked it more. Two years ago I grew both Sun Sugar and Galinas, which had a similar taste that I never got tired of. If I were growing from seed, I'd choose Galinas because it produced more and is OP. But locally, I found only Sun Sugar transplants this year, so that's the one I'm growing again. I didn't grow Sun Sugar before that, but I did occasionally eat a few from a friend's plant.

Monique doesn't work for Holtkamp. Monique is Monique Holtkamp, wife of Reinhold Holtkamp, Jr. Heavens, I'm no expert. I only know what you couldn't kill in 3 years. I grow some in the window so I have some that may work for that and I like blue. I have seen so many put downs of Optimara that I do stick up for them because they are the ones many new growers start with and they are also good ones to start with. I think it must be depressing to send off an order and have them all die. I usually spend around $75-100 when I order. I can get out of Lowe's for $30 or less. There's no reason to discard them later if you like them and they're doing well because if you think you are going to get better ones, you may be in for a shock. Right now good old Optimara Texas is blooming just fine and Faded Denim looks like the devil. When it gets a flower, it's pretty but I think it's about a foot tall. I grow Fredettes, some trailers, some wasps now, some little ones, vintage ones - I like violets. Gardenweb (Houzz?) is not bad about Optimara but you may run into some other people/places where it's like you have cooties. ;) Yes, Kent Stork took the myViolets and hybridized with them and calls them the Ace series, I think. Someone said what perhaps others were thinking and said she'd bought one at Walmart, lol. (He hasn't officially introduced them yet.) I said they looked bigger and that so far the myViolets had seemed to run a bit small and he said that had been his experience. It will be interesting to see them side by side. It was a small photo but the leaves did look large compared to the myViolets. I expect we will be able to see the differences more clearly once they are available. Some plants may not make good show plants but that's okay because I'm not a show grower. It's good to remember that sometimes show growers' objectives may not mesh with a pleasure grower's objectives. Optimara may not be perfect but I don't think I've ever seen some of the crazy foliage on their plants that I've seen on other hybridizer's. The kind where it looks like it stuck its finger in the light socket or something of the sort. Of course their foliage changes course immediately when I take it home and never looks the same again. I'm used to that. FC2 Holtkamp 370 entries P. Hancock 210 entries (and I know some aren't in there) H. Pittman 728 entries K. Stork 160 entries Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses 313 entries P. Sorano 164 entries S. Sorano 784 entries (+ 20 under S. Groeneman) R. Robinson 245 entries Eyerdom 559 entries Should we be picking on Holtkamp? There were fewer Buckeyes than I expected. It's always seemed like there were a lot of them. I had no idea how that was going to turn out but it was interesting. Diana in PA