Just a couple of minutes here for me to report on progress. I've made a couple of trades with some of the folks here - hope everyone is as satisfied with the trade as I am. I'm now out of plants to trade for the year - I try to be generous, and I sent off all of the extras I had. More will be available next year (if things grow well).

Many of my plants have started to push new growth for this year. Some are pushing much more growth than expected (S. cylindrica cylindrica, S. cylindrica pautula, S. wananga Station, S. masonoiana striated, S. hallii and S. hallii variegated, and all of the S. trifascistas). It always suprises me when the plants finally mature and start growing like they should - LOTS of growth in a short time, all of iot gets HUGE (just what I want), and hardens off nice before winter. Most of my plants don't get divided very regularly (my S. masoniana has been growing without division for 10 years), so they do tend to put out mature growth after a while. The S. masoniana has been producing double leaf growths for a couple of years now, with the largest almost 3' tall and 1' wide.

Some of the plants did suffer over the winter, none worse than the S. sp. 'Japanese White Striped Giant'. This one grew some rhizomes straight down to the bottom of the clay pot, and lifted the rootball about 2". This caused the plant to stay pretty dry all winter - the water ran throught he soil, and was never reabsorbed back in. The plant looks a bit sad and dull colored, but it is growing lots of new rhizomes, all of which shoot out in a few more weeks at most.

Some interesting seedlings sprouted in some pots - I have a gazillion sea onion (Bowea sp) in everything. This stuff looks like grass for the first year or two - then the bulbs start to develop. I also have a few unidentified Uncarina sp. sprouted - some are growing quite fast. These were probably from a seedpod that was shipped to me and burst unbeknownst to me. There are a couople of plants in a scattering of pots - I'll wait a year or two before I move them. I also have a couple of different Aroids that have sprouted - Amorphophallus konjak, bulbifer, henrii, Sauromatum venosum, and some that I'm just not sure of yet. I'll have to be more careful with screening my soil for bulbs...

All of the planst that were going to flower this summer have completed their cycles - just a couple of stragglers on the S. parva, a suprise on the S. sp. 'Malawi Bat', and one last spike on the S. Wananga Station.

Now I have to wait until I drag them all indoors again for the winter. I definitly will try and winter over the variegated species in the greenhouse at school - all of the Sansevieria there did OUTSTANDING. I just hope none of them walk, as there is a serious investment represented by these dozen plants.

Joe 'live and learn' DeRosa