Stush, now where do I go from here, I'm already being patient, I'm not watering, I drilled holes in my pot, I turned the night light off, I brought it inside the house instead of the garage, I've with held fertilizer and now I might need special magic perhaps? Oh brother!!! What kind of contest did I get my self into? Wait a minute let me go take a look at my Lil sans, I'll be right back. Ok, I'm still in. My Lil sans honestly looks better than the day the contest started, hey what can I say, I'm keeping the room he's staying in at a special temp. And he's getting the southern Calif. Sun shine kiss Hey I feel good. Stush, I will say this that the day I picked up my bantle sensation I really did feel like it was special. But just for the record what do you mean? Greg

Tip, I was posting in another forum. The person told me about their friend in Taiwan. After their monsoon where their planting beds were flooded for over a month, Their Sans picked right back up and continued growing. And they had many different varieties. So warmth is very important here. They use moisture retentive soils and have no problems. So heat is the key here. Norma, You stated you lost 250 San. 'Forscate' because some one left them unprotected one night and had to start over again. Most any other sans could have taken some abuse. I bought one Sansevieria Trifasciata Futura type on clearance in winter. It was next to an open tarp. It had been exposed to 28 degree F. weather. No harm. I felt sorry for it and thought it would rot after I took it home and warmed up. For only 50 cents. Stush PS my first day I started to feel better. I been suffering with flu and pneumonia.

Planto, do you think I should move mine into more light? I had taken them out of direct sun because without roots, I'd been worried they'd desiccate. They were previously in bright shade with a little direct sun during the summer when they were in soil, but that's when I was doing essentially what Jay does, until I realized the leaves were losing their turgidity, and their tiny roots had disappeared (whether rotted or dried, I couldn't tell). More recently (I moved), they've been on a south-facing balcony, but kept mostly out of the direct sun, so bright shade, but with these cooler recent temperatures (51 degrees now at 7 a.m.), I moved them into very shaded window. Right now, it's not very light, but it's much warmer than the balcony at night. I have a very bright, warm, south-facing living room window where I can move them. It currently gets direct sun from about 9 a.m. until about 5 p.m., with only a couple of hours of dappled sun when when the tree filters it. My Graptopetalum and Echeveria are very happy there, but it's actually burnt my S. hahnii and Crassula tetragona a tad (something odd in that too, but that's a different post). I can put the Sans in that window sill, or set them a foot or two away from it, or I can keep them on the balcony on warm, sunny days (was a freakish 84 yesterday), and move them into the window (or just inside) as it cools at night, or on cool days. Does any of that seem better to you? I could also make a mini greenhouse for them, or place them on a heat pad or something at night because I let it drop below 60 degrees in the apartment at night (love my plants, but not enough to heat the whole apartment for the finicky little buggers). I won't worry about them once they have established roots, but right now they are so vulnerable. Jay, there are many variables you haven't considered - like temperature, day length, amount of sun, cultivar, etc. Your method doesn't work everywhere or for every S. trifasciata. Your conditions differ from mine in some critical way - guessing you're in the southwest or in Florida with high sun, and warm days and nights. I'm in grey western Oregon where the sun is always low, and nights are always cool and damp. My offsets are essentially adult plants - about 6" tall with many leaves. I just divided the plant and took the smaller plants for myself, leaving the larger ones for the owner. I was surprised they didn't have more roots when I took them, so there might've already been something going on in the pot they came from. The owner hadn't kept them in a very bright spot, and alternated between over- and under-watering. They might not have been in great shape when I started, but you know sans - they look healthy right up until they turn to mush. Hard to know how these were really doing when I started.

S.zeylanica was described as early as 1701, but this species had been cultivated in Europe at least since 1690. It comes from Sri Lanka (former : Ceylon) and hence its name. It is a small plant, with thick, spear shaped outcurved leaves. It has little ornamental value and it is not commercially grown anywhere in the world. You can find it in Botanic Gardens or specialist nurseries . One only cultivar, a faintly yellow striped plant is recorded (see photo). Despite it was the first species of this genus to be imported in Europe, it is still rare in collections. It has been often confused with S.aethiopica, a true African species. S.trifasciata comes from Central Africa, it was described in 1915, but was known in Europe since 1762. It has impressive straight, erect, sword shaped leaves , which can attain 1.50 meters in height. We, at present, have hundreds of cultivars (and, to be honest, its most famous cv. âÂÂLaurentiiâ was described in 1903, that is 12 years before its âÂÂmotherâ speciesâ¦).Even before its description as a new species, S.trifasciata was cultivated in many tropical areas around the world. It is a most easy species to be identified : forget leaf colour and the size of the silvery transversal bands , what really matters is the absence of a coloured leaf margin. All the other similar species (I mean : hyacinthoides, forskaoliana, metallica, grandis, aubrytiana) have a thin but conspicuous yellow-red margin. Sometimes it happens that plain S.trifasciata plants are labeled (and sold!) as S.zeylanica: this is just an error or a commercial trick. If You go for S.zeylanica on Google Images You will see only trifasciata plants. I can offer these two pics only of this elusive species: C:\Users\Roberto\Desktop\Chrysantha1afferni\Sans.zeylanica striata.jpg