CLOSED: 2nd Annual FALL Houseplants/Tropicals Swap, Reveal #1

Our Guidelines below are the same as they have been in the past...

We're sharing a minimum of 3 healthy houseplants and/or tropicals whose value is $20 excluding Priority Mail with a Delivery Confirmation number. Feel free to divide plants you already have or start propagating new ones from cuttings. If your budget permits, you're also welcome to include other gardening items such as gloves, water globes, plant markers, Fall bulbs for Spring or Summer blooms, etc.

We are striving to have all packages Priority Mailed by September 30th to beat frost for those who live in colder climates.

Please DO NOT post Delivery Confirmation Numbers directly on our threads...doing so is an invasion of privacy. Instead, keep your receipt handy, or D-mail me the number you used so I can let your Secret Buddy know their box of plants is on the way.

We came from here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1215773/

And our Wish Lists are here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1197083/

Reserved for Participants...


candles4u / Crystal -- . Rec'd from goldhillal
careyana / Carey
catzgalore / Stephanie
chellflower / Chell
dispatcher1 / Lou
FruitOfTheVine / Susan
GAgirl1066 / Paula
GardenQuilts / Lori Lynn
goldhillal / Crystal
happgarden / Joyce
ilovejesusus99 / Sandy
joeswife / Debra
jsxtiger / Jax -- . Rec'd from dispatcher1
rouxcrew / Joy
roxxanne / Rox
rvnsbrk / Neener
tikipod / Angie
Tina_A / Tina

Staying to chat but aren't exchanging plants this round:
AmandaEsq / Amanda
Carolyn22 / Carolyn
Cville_Gardener / Carole
janaestone/ Di
Mud_Elf / Kris
plantsforpeg



This message was edited Sep 15, 2011 9:04 PM

Hey, happ, can I go to school with you? Sitting in class sure would beat the Fall clean-up I'm up to my ears in. With any luck it'll be finished by the week-end, just in time for a little cool down when I start schlepping more houseplants inside.

If any of you are going to be out of town this month or early next month (and haven't already told me), please D-mail the dates so I can let your buddy know how to plan around your schedule.

Fruity, you're welcome to join me if you want! You can keep me awake during History. rofl!

I'm supposed to be typing up a paper for english right now. Whoops!

I will be gone the weekend of the 23rd this month to go help sister with her garage sale. My buddy's box won't go out until this coming weekend.


uhm, do you see what I see?

Ooh English was my favorite subject and I used to be a pretty fast typist. Is there still a test to diagram sentences, loved doing that, sorta like putting together a puzzle except with lines and slashes 0):

Looking good, Debra. It sounds like your Sis is getting stronger, sure hope so.

Oh Fruity I wish it were that exciting! No, we're looking for the deeper meanings in short stories, and then writing about them. Ugh. I write wonderful (if I do say so myself! lol) original work, but I have serious issues looking at someone else's work and looking for meaning...and some of these stories are just awful.

fruity, did u squint at that area to see it? LOL Now we have mouse traps outside? Geesh!

So u are upgrading the written papers then, Carey? I like to write, but don't do that much anymore.. Teacher used to give me a picture from a magazine, like Life, and have me write a story based off the picture and what I read into it..
people that write are extra special, so that makes you an extra special person!

lol Debra I wish! We're just analyzing the writing. It's required coursework for any degree in Texas. Reading comprehension isn't a bad thing to learn, but I'm not sure how it's relevant to accounting. lol

I love to write, and in Comp 1 I did really well as we were given some license on the subjects. This, on the other hand, is not nearly as fun. Phooey! I actually wanted to be an author all those years ago. I had a few stories that I'd started at 12 and 13. Probably why I'm such a grammar stickler though! lol

Debra, that actually sounds like a neat way to learn writing. Maybe that's something that could be used at some of the schools around here.

writing is the reason College Girl gets to go to college, her writing is what gave her the scholarships the past three years. With lap tops, i pods, i pads, and all the other ways of communicating via internet, writing may become a thing of the past so to speak. I hope they continue to have a need for a number 2 lead pencil and erasor. Accounting is numbers, right? U might need to read into the numbers to determine where the losses or gains are and why, for what ever business you are going to work for. My sis in law is an accountant, she also types the little newsletters that go into the payroll check envelopes for her business . Lots of news letters and notices and memos are part of her job as an accountant for a successful businessman.
my writing has waned with the coming of the new digital camera. Pictures that show what I see and feel about nature is now my "writing" ..
do u guys think this one would be good in a collage?

Still lurking ladies. Have a great day. :)

Aww Debra, what a cute pet, but have to say, glad he's at your house and not mine. LOL

Gorgeous pic Debra!

Sooz- you didn't get flooded did you?

Deb - the picture is gorgeous - what is the orange flower? I love the 2 together and your mice look like they need a bit of cheese with their crackers. I'll bring the wine!

I always liked English, but when it came to the 'inner meaning' of a peice - I always felt that it was conjecture and that I would be way off on the 'meaning'. Ironically, I did well with English, French, German, History - I cannot add 2 and 2 to get 4 though.....and forget Algebra. When my children were at that point in school and had questions, I would send them over to my Dad's house. He's a wiz at math.

Carolyn, the orange/red bloom is called Noah, but it is an I. cocciea or something like that. ( morning glory) .. definately a hummer magnet..have yet to capture my hummers in a good shot.

Exactly Debra! It's a shame the written word has fallen so far and good grammar is a forgotten art. Good writing ties into so much, including an active imagination. Six hours of required English for all degree programs in Texas. Most of the young kids are having problems as standards are so lax and they all write in "text speak".

I'm looking at specializing in Audit when I get to that point. I feel too people-oriented to be an effective accountant. Aren't they usually holed up an office, poring over financials? Aren't most of them socially inept? Of course that's a stereotype, but I don't know many full-time accountants to ask!

And thank you for sharing the picture of your morning glories. What a gorgeous display! I don't even think a 1000 words would be enough to describe the beauty shown in that shot. :)

I'm going to try and find some of those Noah Morning Glories. My hummingbirds love flowers and have been enjoying the few that actually bloomed this year.

Carey nearly all the accountants I know or have worked for are socially inept. :0) Some of them are just plain backward. Must be all those numbers. Personally I find it a blessing to have flunked first grade math and gone downhill from there. :0)))))

OMG Neener. No comment. :P

Debra, that mousy is just too darn cute! Wish they weren't quite so destructive.

Fruity I took Russian in Junior High (that is how old I am, no middle school for me...LOL) and the instructor promised to teach us to curse if we took Russian the following year, which was really exciting until he told us we would be diagramming sentences in Russian........decided I wasn't studying that hard, and he had to be crazy...rofl.

Oh fruit I would of traded you places today, it was like torture! I must have allergies (never had before) but I have been sneezing, nose running. So knowing I would be in this class in a closed room for all these demos I grabbed one of DH's allergy pills, should of looked closer because my head almost hit the conference room table from trying to nod off to sleep! I thought I was going to die, the lights were low because the demo was projected up on the wall, my head was killing me, oh just torture. Then they brought lunch in so I didn't even get a chance to go outside, the pill has worn off now, but now I am sneezing, head pounding, and sniffles just feel miserable and I am stuck here until 5pm. Then get to do it over tomorrow, and over the day after, it torture....

Carolyn, Lee dumped about 7" of rain here, no flooding although there was some in neighboring towns and a small town in far SW VA had an F0 tornado touch down that wiped out a gas station / convenience store. We just lucky and only had several puddles in the yard that were soaked up overnight. At least the water level in our well should be back to normal or close to it. I thought about you today when I looked at my Callas that I need to start lifting.

Well I have to admit being a bean counter in a former life, only because they said I had good data processing skills. It was awful being cooped up behind a locked door with a peep hole. The commute was close to an hour each way, but the pay was great and so was the view looking out big windows when my eyes needed a break from processing bills or analyzing spreadsheets. My fav job ever was being an event coordinator. Now that was Heaven planning meetings, many across the Country and getting to travel, working with hotel staff picking out meals, deciding how to set up the meeting rooms, arranging speakers and their itineraries, and icing on the cake was meeting folks I'd only been able to talk to on the phone. Sorta like Round-Up's but on a large scale.

Russian, happ? I took two years of French in college, never got the hang of feminine versus masculine or which way the accents needed to point and to this day can only remember what it means in French to eat, eggs, I love you, and what time is it...lol

You go, Carey, and College Girl too :)

Hi everyone! The recent storms and floods have kept me off line. Luckily, I am on high ground. Some local roads were flooded, school starting delayed, and services interrupted. My phones and internet are finally working (mostly working with short interruptions and disconnections). This hasn't been the best year for gardening. It has been either too hot or too rainy to be outside. It is going to rain AGAIN later this week. I shouldn't complain, people in Texas are wishing for rain.

A bear was rumbling around outside a few weeks ago. We also have two coyotes and a sloth in town. The moved in when the river flooded. I have never seen a sloth in person, but hope I see this one - in town, not in my garden. The bears knocked a few pots over on their way to the neighbor's bird feeder. Both of my neighbors with hummingbird feeders were away, so I saw more hummers in the garden! They seem to prefer sugar water top real nectar. I didn't fill my feeder this year because I didn't want to attract the bears. This naughty squirrel keeps digging up my baby agave. I repotted the poor thing and brought it inside. I visualize the little tree rat humming ...ta da ta da tequila.....while digging in my pots. Squirels are determined to plant black walnuts everywhere! I have to pull lots of baby trees out of the gardens before they start poisoning my plants with juglone. I don't mind the trees near my hosta garden. I collect nuts for my Christmas baking. I have also experimented with the husks for dying fabrics and yarns.

It is fried green tomato time here in PA. I have been taking out my tomatoes. The poor things were leaning every which way after the winds and storms. Thursday night may get down to the 40's. Quite a few of my tropical plants have to get inside when temps dip below 50, so I have been making room for plants inside. The plants keep getting bigger and I keep getting more plants.....irrational, but fun.

I am also trying to root some of my favorite tender plants and collecting seeds. My table is covered with paper bags of drying seeds and jars of fermenting tomato seeds. I need to google rooting impatiens and dahlias. I save the dahlia tubers and seeds (season length permitting)
but I want to have more of my favorite one - which survived the bunnies this spring. It is a big, orchid colored dahlia. My camera wasn't cooperating today, but I'll try to get pictures tomorrow.

Ang, I will send you seeds when they ripen, don't you dare buy any. sheese!

Carey, my sis in law is a very personal lady, she just knows her stuff in accounting is all. The accountant manager upstairs in my office is pretty personable, he has to be, he has a staff of 6 women up there, LOL

Joyce, mice are cute, but when they eat all my seed stash I go nutz. GardenQ I know how u feel about everything you spoke of, almost a mirror of me last year, only it is pecans here.. and I love fried green tomatoes, too bad I didn't get any tomatoes this year with our weather frying everything before it could get going.. (can I whine>?)

Tried to bring in a few more things tonight, feel a cold snap coming already, uprooted a ginger, only have about 3 just like it, so it is sitting on top of a big pot until I decide what to do with it, have not gotten a ginger to bloom yet, but not giving up..

College Girl is getting ready to make some wheat bread from scratch, yummy, it seems when she misses our Duke Dog, she comes to me crying, and then starts baking.. hmmm still think she needs to be going to Culinary school instead of wanting to be a teacher..

Fruity.. you have had such an interesting career, I sure enjoyed hearing about it. It almost made me feel like I was right there with you, planning the meals. I would have been one of the guests to arrive and enjoy your planning, as I went to several cities and attended many meetings when I was in the sales business.
I think my favorite place was in Nebraska at an American Inn or something like that. they had the most wonderful breakfast bar there..

Neener... LOL I never had to go past 8th grade math in Junior High.. good thing, cuz I learned more being a commission sales person than in the class room. Being paid on percentage of what you sell helps you figure out how much you need to sell to get x amount of dollars, and that is how I lived for almost 26 years.
Amanda, I picked 8 white four o clock seeds for you, and noticed a clump of Eupatorium ( Butterfly Cocaine) , and thought of you. It is just now starting to bloom.

I am hoping to see some blooms from the Species morning glorys before it freezes. I have several from all over the world.
I have successfully rooted a nice two ft tall maybe three ft tall old fashioned lilac, looks like it could be a bloomer even this spring, would love to send it off, I have already planted a ton of the others I rooted out around the yard .. *hint hint*

This message was edited Sep 13, 2011 8:03 PM

careyana, check out the book by Jung - Signs and Symbols or a similar title . If you can find symbolism or references to greek mythology in the stories you are reviewing your teacher will be impressed. (I googled "jung symbols" and got lots of links, but not that particular title, there is a book "Man and His Symbols"). If I returned to my high school library, I could find the book in an instant - assuming they hadn't rearranged the shelves. I went to Cornell. Everyone had to pass a freshman level English course as part of their degree. I think that literacy requirements are important. It is shocking that illiterate people are graduating from high schools in the US. Also, so many foreign students study at American colleges that they should graduate with proficient English schools. Employers assume that graduates from respected American Universities speak, read and write English. Unfortunately, I found in my own experience that isn't always true. Some also don't respect women bosses - but that is another problem altogether.

I have to lift my cannas, but I need to get pots for them. I started them from seed and haven't seen them bloom, yet. I try to keep them growing in pots inside over the winter. They are 3-4' tall now. I was hoping to see blooms.

GQ , do you keep them in a greenhouse ? I keep mine growing too, but they just get tall and leggy.. thought I would try to leave them in ground this year , with something heavy on top of them..

I looked up the "noah" morning glories - their latin name is Ipomoea hederifolia. They are listed as hardy to zone 5!

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/58095/

I especially like the tangerine colored variety!

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/16645/

One commentator in PA grows them in a pot on the patio. It may be a good idea especially in warm climates. My annual morning glories - 'I. purpea 'star of Yelta' and 'Bright Eyed Girl' reach the top of my trellis/roofline each summer. Their dropped seeds start all over again each spring. If they were perennial, they might be a problem.....

I love the purple 'Star of Yelta' morning glories. They have sentimental value for me as well. They were the first flower I grew here. My friend installed trellises and planted them for me when I moved here. They have reseeded and come back each year!

GQ, I am glad u like morning glorys, I am fond of them as well, would love to send you some.. I have the var. lutea ( it is yellow) , the red and the orange.

I also have a ton of cute little lavender ones, well, I have a lot of all kinds.

joeswife, I would love some morning glory seeds. Maybe we can check each other's lists and work out a trade! At the moment, I have 'Star of Yelta' and 'Star of Yelta' and 'Bright Eyed Girl' mixed seeds from last year. I'll be glad to trade or fill a SASE if anyone wants them. This year's seeds haven't ripened, yet, but will soon. I will try to get some BEG separate this year. Last year I gathered seeds after the first cold blast got the vines. I tried a couple of Japanese morning glories in pots, but they haven't set seeds. I guess I'll have to find room inside for those pots as well - maybe mixed together in a hanging pot.

I tried several ways to start hard seeds like canna and morning glory. My favorite way is to put the seeds in coffee cups and pour almost boiling water on them. Then let them soak in the water and swell. It is much easier than sanding and soaking the little seeds.

I don't have a greenhouse, just windows and fluorescent lights on a shelf. I had a compact flourescent light in a clip on fixture above one tall plant last winter. The cannas liked it by patio door last year. I need much bigger pots for them this year. I managed to keep my tropical hibiscus and my gardenia alive for several years as well. They don't bloom inside, but they survive and keep their leaves. I am trying to get some more lights scattered around my small place for my plants. My living room has a vaulted ceiling. I would like to do something dramatic with tall plants and/ or vines. I tried growing morning glories against my northeastern bedroom window inside last year. I thought it would be interesting to have a living, blooming curtain. They didn't get enough light in that window. Bella the cat played with the vines and thought the window box planters were nice places to nap. My begonias like it there, so all is not lost. (Cinnamon on the potting mix and neems oil spray on the foilage seems to deter Bella from most plants - except palms and low hanging spider plant babies).

Most people wait for their canna foilage to die back from frost and store them as tubers. Last year, my canna seedlings were too small to have tubers, so that wasn't an option. I'll see what they look like when I dig them up this year. I don't have a basement or garage for cold bulb storage, so I keep things alive in pots if possible - except for gladiolas and dahlias which I lift and store.

I hope that it stays warm at night for a while longer so that we cold climate gardeners get everything done outside.

Today I went shopping for my swap partner and I ended up chatting a bit with a woman. I think for the first time today I really felt like a gardener. She's not from here and so I was able to offer suggestions for her houseplants. It felt good!

Thank you Debra! I wasn't able to collect any of the seeds from my containers because someone kept dead heading them. These will go up on my deck so my neighbors will leave them be.

I am back home have lots to tell you all!!
Also,, I will be offering some plants up for adoption as I need new homes for them,, So If you want something for postage I will try to see about making a list this week.

My swap partner's package will be going out tomorrow. Whoever gets my box should be cautious with the plant wrapped in paper towels and please contact me if I didn't write down one of the plants on the piece of paper. I totally forgot one, I just know it.

Elfie,
I will be an adoptive parent....don't mind at all. Just let me know.

What's your news...must be exciting??

Neener! I almost had root beer snorting out of my nose! I can't imagine you were THAT bad a student!

Carolyn, maybe it's that whole left/right brain thing. I have the hardest time learning other languages. I spent four months in Italy and all I can really remember is "pomodoro". I CAN read with perfect inflection, but I have no idea what I'm saying. lol! And thankfully DH is very technical/mathematics so if something doesn't make sense right away, he's usually able to explain it simplistically for me. :)

Thanks Fruity! I can't imagine you holed up in an office. Did you surround yourself with plants or were you stuck with 'corporate planters' like I was at my last job? Sounds like the event planning one was a dream come true! I'm not 100% sure this major will work out for me, but having a degree will sure help in the jobs department because right now all I have is an expired certification. Yuck!

Debra, it does take a special kind of man to surround himself by women in an office building. lol! It's good to know there are accountants that aren't completely anti-social. :) And if College-Girl decides maybe she'd do better with culinary training, there's a cordon bleu academy less than five miles from my house, so if she'd like to tour the facility....she has a place to stay!

Lori Lynn, unfortunately education isn't considered very highly in Texas, so I'm seeing a lot of interesting demographics at school. I'm attending the local community college and hope to transfer to U. of Texas. The Austin CC is actually very highly rated, and enrollment is now rivaling UT. If I remember the numbers, fall enrollment at ACC this year is over 47k - 12k are new students. UT's annual enrollment is usually around 49k or so. Anyway, in my American Government class, for instance, a girl from Pakistan sits in front of me and there is an English girl behind me, and a lady in her 50s beside me. We have some fantastic discussions in that class. :) I'll have to take a look for the Jung book. We have a lot of used book stores around here (college town!) so I should be able to find a copy of some of his works for sure.

Debra, back up yonder, in your pic........there was a large-leaf purplish plant........kin ya tell me what it is?

You Ladies are ttooooo quck fer me!!!! I was shocked when I received me buddy package today! (will post pics in am) ......an i aint nowheres close to sending mine out!!!

I have several things for my buddy here at the house!!! That is a huge first for me! I have so little that has made it through my mom and the drought. I am one of those folks who never knows what to put on a wants list, but I do like surprises. In fact most of what my last tropical swap partner sent me was totally new. Never heard of them, but they are growing!!!! Still don't know anything about them except they must like me.

Someone was wanting a strawberry begonia, I have a basket with tons of babies. Hadn't seen one in years, and found it in the clearance section of Lowes. I can try rooting and adopt them out if anyone is interested.

We are back in the 100's again, and I am so sick of it. The entire month of August was over 100. I am trying to wait till the weather cools off a bit for my buddy's box, but at this rate it will be snowing everywhere and we will still be hot.

Joy

Hay Jax, there are two purpleish plants in that photo above, one is an amranthus "elephant" head, and the other an I. Batata "blackie" both need a home..
one is growing thru a crack in the pavement, the other in a rooting pot waiting to go somewhere..


Elfie, if u have any EE's I would pay for postage....

Joy, I can't believe u guys are still in the triple digits, it is so horrible when it is like that, it was 96 the day before yesterday and 68 today..

I am still trying to find a hardy hibiscus plant.. if anyone finds one at their lowes or somewhere on a clearance rack, please let me know..

this side of the room and the closet is now ready for occupancy.. LOL

joeswife, I have spare young hardy hibiscus - Hibiscus syriacus - that I wintersowed. Each is about 6" tall. The seeds were from a trade and are supposed to be lavender. I also have H. syriacus seeds in a few other colors. I plan to winter sow some more this year, but have extras. I am excited that they are immune to juglone from black walnut trees.

We were only in the 80's here -but with 90 -100% humidity. The air was heavy and hard to breathe. Hard to believe that it is time to get my tropical babies inside, but night temperatures are supposed to be in the 40's starting tomorrow. We are having yet another rain storm at the moment, but no flood warnings, thank goodness.

Joy - ya'll have the same miserable weather we do? I thought you were supposed to get some showers in the east? They had some forecast for Friday earlier, but they're out now. The music festival is going to be God-awful. We're betting the organizers are wishing they would have left the October dates last.

Debra, my FM has Hibiscus moscheutos. Is that what you mean?