It's likely that much of what we discuss relative to this plant will be applicable to others as well. I think the first thing I would do is inspect for insects, especially scale and spider mites. Once you determine whether or not the plant has a problem, and what the problem is if there is one, we can decide how to get the pests under control. Then, let's get the plant into the shower & wash all the dust off the leaves. Leaves are solar collectors that turn the sun's energy into food via the process of photosynthesis, so we want to eliminate dust on the leaves so they receive as much light as possible ..... but don't put the plant in direct sun just yet - the leaves might experience something called photo-oxidation, which is a fancy term for sun burn. Your plant is weak and can't afford to lose it's foliage just now because it would likely (literally) starve to death. Next on the list would be to get the plant to a very bright and warm spot - brightest and warmest w/o being in full sun is what you're looking for. At your convenience, lift the plant from the pot & inspect the roots. If the root and soil mass comes out of the pot intact, I'll give you some easy instructions insofar as how to treat the roots, and direct you to pot up a size as a temporary measure until you can do a full repot next summer. I'll help you flush the soil of accumulated salts, and suggest an appropriate fertilizer you can use to make sure the plant has the nutrients it need to grow and regain some vitality. Eventually (next summer), you'll prune the long stem back almost to the ground. The stub will back-bud profusely, and you'll soon be on your way to a healthy and attractive plant. Just a general comment - not a lecture to you: Plants, left to do what they do in a pot are doomed to a predictable decline that follows a common pattern, a pattern the cause of which a huge % of growers don't understand - easily more than 95%. Most of those who have been around GW for a while have an advantage, however, because how to maintain plants in good health over the long term is a commonly discussed topic across most of the forums. It takes specific efforts by the grower to ensure the plant doesn't follow the predictable pattern. It's sort of like the oil in your car. Even if you're completely unaware the oil needs changing regularly, not changing the oil is going to shorten engine life and cause premature problems. The same goes for neglecting a plant's root system and allowing it to be compromised by congestion and a soil that has collapsed. You can wax your car, use premium fuel, flush the radiator regularly ..... which would be akin to keeping the plant tidy, fertilizing regularly, and flushing the soil when you water, but if you neglect the engine or roots ..... You should find this link helpful. Al Here is a link that might be useful: Some interesting Scheff insight here, too ...

I think the 2nd one may be Aglaonema, but agree with the advice, and not just moving to smaller pot, but make sure to remove old soil and replace with new. A very tough plant but won't tolerate too much sogginess. It looks like you're avoiding that by only wetting the middle. But without flushing the soil periodically by letting water flow through and out the drain hole in the bottom, toxins are buiding up in the soil and inhibiting this plants' growth. Understandable in an office, but will cause a problem over time if not addressed. Another option might be to keep the same pot, get new soil, and add more plants to the pot so the pot is filled with roots and use the moisture faster. Some pieces of Tradescantia zebrina or something with a similar growth habit would cover the soil surface and trail around the edges of the pot, for a much more pleasing overall appearance.

I'm going to restrict my comments to tomatoes that you might be able to find as transplants, since that's what you're looking for. What I have liked: Amelia has worked well for me, lasted a long time through disease pressure, good fruit. I grew one of the BHN tomatoes (I can't remember which one it was) with results similar to Amelia. Better Boy: My mom and lots of people around here swear by Better Boy, but I have not personally grown it. Solar Set is kind of iffy - the fruit were small for slicers and the flavor was just okay. It did set fruit in the heat as advertised, though. Cherry/Grape Tomatoes: If you like cherry/grape tomatoes, a lot of them do really well - they handle the diseases better than most of the big tomatoes and set better in the heat. Sweet 100 or Sweet Million are commonly available reds and usually do well. For yellows, I like SunSugar, but have to grow it from seed - you might be able to find the similar SunGold as a transplant, though. Once it really gets going, one plant usually supplies all the cherry tomatoes my family can eat, all summer and into fall. A cherry tomato will become a huge sprawling plant if you let it, but you can harvest hundreds and hundreds of tasty little gems from one plant over the course of a season. What I haven't liked: Celebrity never did well for me, either! I thought it was just me, since everyone sells that one. Roma has always been mediocre-tasting for me, just bland. Works okay for sauces (cooking concentrates what flavor it has), but blah for salsas. Yield has been erratic. I am trying to find a better paste variety. Bush Goliath was a big disappointment. It made a very healthy-looking plant with lots of blooms, but very little fruit set and it had huge problems with fruit rot when no other tomatoes I planted that year did. (I wonder if that's because the fruit it did manage to set was in the very middle of the plant surrounded by dense foliage? By "surrounded" I mean that the few fruit that did ripen were really hard to pick without breaking branches - there was no way to get a hand in there or get the tomatoes out!) My mom had the same experience. To be fair, both our plants came from seeds that I started in the same year, so maybe it was a bad batch? The few fruit we got were pretty good, but I haven't been inclined to try it again. Brandywine grew into a huge plant quickly, but set almost no fruit. The fruit it did set were early - didn't set at all in the heat. Apparently the bugs, birds, and squirrels think it's tasty, too. Both years I tried it, it was always attacked first by everything. I got two fruits one year and none the next, and it was the first to succumb to disease in midsummer. I have to say the two tomatoes I did get were some of the best tomatoes I've ever had. I just don't have the space for a big plant that is going to produce little or no fruit, no matter how good it is. YMMV, but I hope this helps!

I'd really been wondering when the redbuds would show that first blush of color and finally .... just in the last day or two, they are showing up along the roadsides. A deer visited a few days ago and snacked on some of my tulips :( but the ones that are left are beginning to bloom and they are beautiful! Phlox is now blooming and the hostas are growing fast. I'm now pretty sure that the tree that I thought might be a crabapple is just that, and it looks like another small tree is a redbud (yay). It's fun discovering what's growing here, now that the weather has finally decided to warm up. A neighbor said 12 wild turkeys were in our yard the other day, but we were at work so we missed seeing them. The street we live on is called Turkey Run Drive, so now we now how it got its name :). Oh, and one bit of good news .... they started the dirt work where the building will go, and when they stripped off the bermuda grass the land is mostly nice dirt, with only one little strip of red clay running through it. This may have once been farmland, or a pasture. So that's good news for the vegetable garden. Suzie