Gill,
Those all look amazing. They may not be as large as you may have liked, but they all have such wonderful starts to some amazing caudex's and characteristics. Do you pinch any at all when you?
Mine do not grow as quickly as others I have seen posted, but when I started growing these. I decided that if I had to grow all winter under artificial lights that I may not have started or atleast not to the degree I have.
I keep my younger for the first winter under lights for an extension of natural light only for first winter and then they are on their own.
Enough of me.
Yours look wonderful and I say kudos to growing them to what I see with conditions available.
Exceptional,
Rick

Gill I think yours look great, so fat and healthy! I understand the size envy. All of mine are shrimps compared to many others, and I've been growing all summer in full bright all day sunshine and day and night high heat. Looks like you are doing things right :)

-Heather

But Gill, that is exactly the look I am aiming for! My seedlings are so obedient too---they're about 8 months old and less than 3 inches all! How do you get so many branches on your survivors? Were you pinching them repeatedly or are they arabicums and branch so on their own? I keep forgetting to pinch because I tend to obsess over the roots instead.

They are great looking plants!

Pagan

p.s. I remember coming across that "unmentionable incident" when I first started poking around here nearly a year ago. Glad you had survivors,

Thanks everyone for your continued encouragement! When I see the range of plants that you have all grown and look at mine I admit I tend to get a bit jealous of the good results you get. I forget that growing such plants here in the less than favourable UK is a challenge, so to have 21 from seed and still alive is not too bad at all then? I am pleased with my 3 big ones even though flowers elude me at present. If I can sort out the one with crispy tips, then all the better.

Rick, hi there, I imagined those that you sowed would be outgrowing mine in leaps and bounds! I have pinched the 3 big ones once as I don't particularly like the long tall look that obesums can show especially when grown in lower light conditions. For some reason I have got a mass of branches...the right hand one is especially branchy. In fact there are so many I can't count them!

Hello Heather, glad you like them. 'Size envy', ha-ha, yes I've definitely got that, lol! I find them so easy to germinate and get going...it's the after care that can be problematic, that said, I don't lose many to rot once past the small seedling stage.

...and now Pagan, hi to you too! Thanks for your kind words. Nope, no repeated pinching at all just the initial nipping out of the leader on the 3 big guys, the others haven't been pinched yet as they are not that big really. Only the first 3 are Arabicums by the way. The only survivors are the 3 big guys plus the 2 largest NOID obesums in pic 4, the ones in the terracotta pots. I guess I lost 18 or so.
OK, thanks for your interest, I'm off to do some more DR surfing!
Gill UK.

Hello Gill,
Many thanks for those kind words, I know those plants have gone to a good home. Thats a small forrest you have and they look so clean and healthy and each with their own character. I predict you WILL have blooms next season ( I say season as it doesn't sound so far away). As for the crispy tips this reminds me of earlier posts in the spring where new sprouts seem to have difficulty emerging due to what appears to be solidified sap and I wonder if a little careful spraying with warm water may help. Anyway, many thanks for your update and best of luck with them, and happy surfing.
Brian UK.

Hello Brian, you are welcome my friend! Yes they are all squeaky clean! I did try the spraying technique, it didn't seem to have a great deal of effect. Perhaps if I had done it on a more regular regime, the outcome may have differed somewhat. It may be too late in the season now as the big guys 2nd dormany looms, the seedlings should stay leafy this time round.
Apart from this single issue, they all seem fine despite their diminutive size.
I favour the appearance of the Arabicums at the moment as they look so different with their robust, stout bases...'missiles' I think Rick likened his to in a previous thread!!
Gill UK

Gill, I can relate to your concerns for smaller plants than others show on the forum. I walk away after seeing some of these huge seedlings and wonder if I even have a clue what to do with my plants. But yours look great and I'm impressed with the size of the caudex on your seedlings already. Heck on most of my seedlings I don't even have that yet.

At least we get to grow our beloved plants. Sometimes when my impatience roars its ugly head I have to tell myself, I'm fortunate that I still have some alive. ha ha.

I find even after years of growing plants I am still under watering, over watering, under fertilizing, over fertilizing, rotting plants, spraying something drastic for pests marking up my plants, spraying yet something else and killing plants completely...etc. I hope one day I will learn patience and not always over compensating making it hard for plants to thrive.

Good luck Gill. I think your plants look fantastic.

LadyL,hi and thanks. Yes I do agree...to have live DR's is a bonus for sure as I said above. When I saw one for the first time in Thailand in 2005, if anyone had told me then that I would be able to grow even just one from seed and get it to the stage mine are at now...well you can imagine what my reaction would have been. So here we are in 2013 and I have 23 of them!! I took a picture of the flowering red DR that was responsible for my addiction and posted it on one of the forums here and got a positive ID. I think it was the plumeria forum as I used to grow those at that time.....the rest is history!! They are quite an assorted bunch of 'conversation starters' as folks often question what they are.

So you too don't always get it right eh? There was me thinking I was the only duffer on here, lol!!

Gill UK