What's a goldfish plant?

I have no idea what a goldfish plant is (sorry!), but just wanted to share - I recently learned that Aucuba makes a really nice houseplant as well. Who'da thunk it?? For those of you looking for something new, in a moderate/large size, maybe ya might wanna give 'em a try. They, of course, would do great if you put 'em outside during the Spring/Summer/early Fall, in bright shade, but if ya don't wanna, ya don't gotta.

OK, now I REALLY gotta get in the shower!

Morning gang, you may have seen these little cuties and they may have been called something else. It is called Guppy plant sometimes also. It is a Nematanthus weiisteinii is the name of one. There is another, in fact many others that are also called goldfish plant an the one that looks like flying fish is Columnea, these are gesneriads. The one I have I think is a Guppy since the flowers are tiny and look like candy corn.

I sell it as a goldfish because that is what it was called when I bought it. There are really many different ones and some of them really look like fish.
Here is my mother plant.

here is another shot of her


They have beautiful shiny leaves and are very easy to propagate. The are rather slow growers and like to be watered regularly. The make lovely houseplants and hanging baskets also.
Here are some of the babies in the greenhouse...looking well considering the weather has been steaming them in the greenhouse.


I hope this gives you an idea what they are like. Nice plants for a small apartment also. I sell a lot of them to city people.

Nice, JB! It is adorable! Wish we would have known about these when my DD was little--she would have loved it!

JB, that's a great name for the plant. It's really cute!

I did not name it, but I do think it is a fun name.

I am also a fan of sinningias....I have two that I really like
Bristol's Galaxy Tour


Bristol's Love Potion


Both of these are now blooming again. They are so pretty. Love the size of the flowers.

Beautiful, JB! The purple bloom is huge and the scalloped edging on the pink is perfect.

Sinningias--these are also new to me!

OH look at the cute little baby Guppy plants!!

Makes me think of the goldfish snacks my daughter used to love!

Makes me think of the goldfish snacks DD used to love!

I have a few streptocarpus, 'Cape Primrose' is the common name. Thought I would show them to you.
It is nothing compared to what @StrepbyStrep has but maybe if we are lucky he will pop in and make me jealous with all his beautiful things. He has a cubits, think I mentioned it on another thread and it is so full of beautiful streps I just spend too much time there drooling. http://cubits.org/Strepbystrep...
Here is my favorite...Salmon Sunset.
These are six of the babies I grew and sold.


Here is the Mother plant after it has been trimmed and repotted. These things bloom constantly.


I will show more later. I do not have that many but I love them as houseplants.

Beautiful strep, JB!

Your Streps are gorgeous JB!! Who wouldn't love THOSE babies as houseplants!?

I just checked my strep cuttings and I must have lost all but about 10 if I am counting correctly. I am so frustrated with that because I must have planted several dozen and I do not even have one dozen left, that I am sure of. Those do not show signs of babies, just that they have rooted. Sometimes I wonder why I bother doing this because there are days like this when your heart just sinks....these little cuttings are like live babies to me. I get so upset to think I caused their demise. I must be getting crazier as I go along. Oh well, I will just have to try again and this time take a young leaf...no old ones. Lesson learned the hard way.

hi, JB. Propagating from cuttings is so hard--to me, your success rate sounds terrific! So using young leaves works better than using older ones?

I have tried getting cuttings to root several times but have never had any success.

I found a man who had and will sell several rare varieties of spiders and I purchased 12 new ones from him. I hope I can propagate them eventually. I think collections of different plants is really fun and challenging. Especially if they can be propagated and resold.

And rare ones, too! Very cool!

Catmint20906 said:hi, JB. Propagating from cuttings is so hard--to me, your success rate sounds terrific! So using young leaves works better than using older ones?

I have tried getting cuttings to root several times but have never had any success.

Young leaves are what I was told is best to use for the Streptocarpus (Cape primrose) propagation. I tried again today and did 16 sections of leaves from 4 different plants. Here it is the middle of August and those I planted June 17th did not sprout yet. As you know, many died. We will see if this is correct or not.