I need another houseplant like I need a hole in my head, but I love the odor of the orange and Zogee's has been having a great sale. I must look the other way and stop this. I bought all those new spider varieties and they are all in the house growing, so it is like a beautiful jungle in the bird room with the camellia, jasmine and lined with spider plants. Some of these new varieties are really interesting. I am so glad I looked into more of them. So easy to care for and so warm and cozy looking in the colder weather, so cooling looking in the warm days. I just love them.


As for the camellia, it is so big I am thinking I will put a small string of white Christmas Lights on it this year and it will be my Christmas Tree. Living on a Christmas Tree Farm, we always have a tree inside but I do not have the space to have one here so this will be just fine this year.

Awesome Idea with the lights on the houseplant...My Dad stopped putting up a tree years ago and puts a strand or two on his Lemon tree he's been growing . He uses the an LED light strand so not to burn any of the leaves with a hot bulb.

My lemon and lime trees are 3 years old -- they get a summer vacation outdoors, but they are just under lights the rest of the time. You just need a good white fluorescent, although they are getting harder to find. I may need to get a T-something fixture to replace the next shoplight that burns out...

I have a lemon, lime and orange that one of them bloomed once and then nothing. Do we have to do lights and such? I use the lime leaves in Thai cooking. Lemon leaves will lower blood pressure. But, I never get any flowers/fruit. For my other plants, I have LED blue/red/violet lights. For vegetables, I have an orange/white/red/blue LED bulb that I haven't tried yet.

The trees are about 3 feet tall and 9 years old. I bought them from one of the mail order nurseries. This year, they stayed in for the summer. Last year they were out all summer. I see no difference.

My great fun this year is African Violets. I bought 9 new ones. 5 are sweet starts from a seller on eBay. They are beautiful and one is already flowering. 4 were dollar, non-blooming Optimara's from Lowe's. I already had one trailer and what I think may be Optimara Millenia.

I need lights for mine -- we don't get enough sunshine it seems even in our south-facing windows.. MR

My south facing windows don't get sun in summer when the sun is high in the sky. Come winter, the sun is no longer over the roof of the house, but lower to the south where my plants get bathed with sunshine!! How convenient is that???

Same with us -- when the sun is out!

I had my lemon tree in a west window......I did have blooms & a few lemons, but I would probably had more with gro-lights. I noticed one of my Christmas cactus has blooms on it already! Linnea, those violets sound awesome! I have no violets left....need to get at least one for the winter.....

I did have to move our Christmas cactus to a room that didn't get a whole lot of artificial light after the sun went down. I think for at least some of them, their bloom is triggered by the changing day length, almost as much as poinsettias... I could get them to grow well from cuttings, but no bloom under the grow lights!

My cactus are all in the living room, closed off by French doors.....I keep out of there after dark, so the buds will set......

My Christmas Cacti are really Thanksgiving Cacti. And then April Fools Cacti.

There were lots of pretty African Violets at Hannaford and Shaw's, but they are all un-named.

Don't have either store around here, but I can get some at Lowe's.....

Some of my stock plant Holiday Cactus in the greenhouse are beginning to set buds. Amazing since the sun has been so bright, except, they are on their own time, no lights, just nature's own environment with a roof and shade cloth.

Lowe's violets are Optimara's. There is a good facebook page and an Optimara site to ID them. There are not that many out at one time, so once they bloom, you can get the name easily.

I have a lot of new starts off eBay. I want to learn to hybridize AV's and everything else I have growing here. It so satisfies my nerdiness.

What's life about? We need to have our hobbies!

RobinD said:What's life about? We need to have our hobbies!

My "hobby" plants are also an attempt to leave this planet just a little more beautiful -- at least this small spot! Trying to help counteract a world bent on self-destruction... The "if everyone would light just one tiny candle.." approach. On a more serious note, I truly believe seeds are becoming the new form of American guerrilla warfare against the corporate chemical giants and factory farms!

Of course, I also believe there is a God and He hasn't given up on us yet... And that's what life is all about! MR

This is absolutely correct. Rev. 18:22,23 talks about the chemical companies controlling the earth. Think about it. God made the trees and the leaves by the LIVING WATER for our healing. What kind of vegetation grows by polluted water?

In Genesis, seeds reproduce after their own kind. GMO seeds don't.

So, most folks eat chemical laced foods and wear chemical laced products and then take chemicals made by the same companies to combat illness. That is just whack.

Clean gardening has a huge impact.

We are still battling the dumping of "biosolids" (sludge) on the nearby farmlands here. Today we made another thousand dollars in a yard sale to pay the lawyers who are handling our "appeal". The sludge comes from the municiple waste plants and has very little nutritional fertilizer value and lots of dangerous pathogens and prions that are definitely not completely destroyed during the incomplete heating process that the waste from industries and hospitals (as well as households) contains. The real kicker is that the companies that are paid big bucks to haul and dump the stuff, are given the authority to decide whether the sites are safe to dump on. Ours is not (even though they were issued permits after they reported their findings) We have untillable land. The sludge cannot be turned over into the ground and the hilly terrain allows the rain water to carry it in all directions. The Delaware River Keepers have begun to take notice and are coming on board with whatever advise and help they can give us. This sludge is being dumped in so many rural areas in the US, that we really don't know whether we're consuming food from sludged farm lands unless the super markets (Wegman's and Whole Foods in our area} make a public announcement that they are not accepting such produce or meat or dairy products,

Sorry that I'm off topic, but I just needed to vent.