Good luck to you! I hope you do well at this show. Are you going to enter any of the shows in the KY State Fair? You really should. (My mom is Assistant Superintendant of the Plants and Flowers Division of the fair - enough bragging and plugging here!) The Amateur Days show is Aug. 20 and 21, and is a good way to get your feet wet in a bigger show, according to Mom. You have to register by July 1, but of course you don't have to actually enter if you find you have nothing worthy on the day of the show. You can register online and they send the entry tags to you. I have already registered for this year - first time ever for me (Mom finally talked me into trying it)! Here is the link for the info. Good luck at your show Monday! Take pictures of all your blues! Here is a link that might be useful: Kentucky State Fair Competitions Entry Information

Datura you can trade for in the seed trading forum. I've seen folks trade them off. I recently got double purples from someone. Waiting for fall to toss them out where I want them to grow. I should probably count how many there are. I want to get several different colors, just haven't caught the various trades I've seen. :) So keep peepers out on the seed forum. Also in the plant forum, you might see some there, I'm not sure though. ~Tina Marie

The main point of my post was to see if it odd for the 'Mac' to grow in shade,like the mother did for like 4-5 years, and bloomed constantly, and basically to grow so fast after re-potting? I intend to trade, or sell, cuttings either rooted or unrooted as soon as I can. And as soon as i get my first umbel, I am going to figure out how to post pics. of the blooms. I have some now, but I still do not understand 'photobucket'. I've tried and tried and all I get is a row of numbers and letters in my post. But I have pictures of the mothers blooms, on 'real' film, and on the computer, I have to look for them, and see if I can post them. to get the hang of it. I just wondered if I got lucky and got an odd 'Mac' that likes what it isn't suppose to like, shade, water,and small potted. I think it likes to be potbound, right? So it will be in the 6in basket for a while. It is humid beyond belief and hot as all heck, but it is a outside northern exposure open porch. It WAS on a semi enclosed southern porch, getting morning sun on it till 11am or so. And it grew little, it was just stagnant. Then I potted it up into a small hanging basket and in less than 1 month it is growing like gang busters. Is that odd? Or pure luck? Just wondered if others grew their 'Macs' with that kind of exposure ,or some other way? Maybe had some hints to get it going even better? So far my new starter plant of H. Albiflora, my new 'big flower' is taking off to. It is on the back porch right now, but I have to find a place right next to the Mac to hang it, and see if it likes that area as well. Want to hang it up in a basket as well, and get vines all over the place. Still trying to find places to put all the other more common hoyas that I love, all my fuzzy ones:) Like my 'Red Buttons' plant, a place to live out front. Thats where every hoya I have lives, except my 'Tsangii', it is on the back porch and it grows great,and the smell of hot melted butter from the blooms is just overwhelming! But every other one likes the front. I guess its the air and humidity and it is very bright,just no direct sun. Even my most common 'H. Carnosa Variegata Rubra', that I got at Lowes, just for the foliage, never thought about its blooms, is covered in about 20 big round balls of pink fuzzy flowers! I just looked at the 'Mac' next to it, and its only been two days and the new growth has doubled in size, and the newest growth is still deep red...so pretty. Maybe this is my reward for all the cr-p I have had last year and this year, so far. I hope. Send me even 1 'Mac' flower, and I'll be thrilled!

Congrats to you Steve! I just got H. Hellwigiana, H. lacunosa(very big too!), and H. Ruthie. It's an awesome experience to open a box with your new additions! I have another one coming this week, I think it is called H. Magnifica? It has big white fragrant flowers. Cannot wait!!