I'm probably one of the ones you read on HMF but here's my opinion. Snow Ruby has beautiful form. She won Mini Queen for me last June. Plant gets to about a foot tall with shiny dark green leaves. Some black spot but not too bad. This was it's second season for me and I'm hoping it will get a little bigger next year. It did die back nearly to the ground last winter. But that really won't be a problem for you.

I saw gorgeous Nematanthus Ubatuba in a back yard in Tampa area - this is a large leaf and generally large plant. Most of Nematanthus do have orange or pale orange flowers. There are some exotic red, white and greenish with dots blooming species - but they are harder to grow and not available in a general nursery sale. Nematanthus comes from South America - I bet it is not dry in Brazil ;-)), but my understanding - it is an understory plant - it grows under the trees and on the trees as epiphyte - so dappled light would be good. Aeschynanthus (lipstick plant) takes the same niche - but in tropical Asia - so requirements are similar. Aeschynathus flowers of the available in nurseries varieties are mostly red, one really easy and quite wide spread species A. longicaulis (marmoratus) has interesting green flowers and gorgeous marble backed leaves. Some time ago a Florida member of this forum posted a pic of a large and well grown specimen of this plant - and it was growing in a back yard. Very desirable A.hybrid is called "Black Pagoda". Regarding conventions - the local gesneriad and AV clubs usually run their shows once a year mostly in the same place. The larger conventions are done in different towns every year - because most of the work is done by the hosting club - and they take turns. You check gesneriadsociety.org and avsa.org on "events" - so you will know who runs what in your vicinity. I would say you are in luck if you have a club nearby you can join - this is usually a source of knowledge, cuttings and nice people to associate with. (Just do not use the words "lipstick" and "goldfish" - if you are dealing with gesneriad crowd - they like to use botanical names - even sometimes not very many people know how to pronounce it right - for me - the biggest issue is Kohleria warszewiczii - I grow this beautiful plant - but i cannot "voice" it.) Cheers Irina Here is a link that might be useful: hybrids and species of Nematanthus

Amy was right. It was raining on us. We have had on-and-off rain for almost 48 hours, although the first two "rain showers" dropped such a fine mist that you had to stand still in the yard and try really hard to feel it because you really couldn't even see it and it wasn't reaching the ground. Tim called it mist or light rain. I called it virga or maybe high humidity. We have had a lot of virga this year, and it drives me up the wall. After those first two rain showers, our rain gauge still was as dry as a bone. We had good rain (we've been so dry that anything that hits the ground is good rain, even if there isn't much of it) yesterday morning and heavier rain overnight and this morning. It ended around noon, though a lot of it after about 9 or 10 a.m. was just light, misty stuff. A little after 1 am we had a thunderstorm with tons of thunder and lightning. One nearby lightning strike was incredibly loud and woke us up, but it still was lovely to listen to the sound of raindrops on the rooftop. All that rain finally added up to 1.55" in our rain gauges in the front and back gardens, and we have wet grass and puddles in the driveway. I'm thrilled. Of course, the rain ruined all my plans. I wanted to harvest yesterday, but it rained all morning so I canned much of the harvest from Monday (I canned from around 4:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.) and said I'd harvest today. Today it rained all morning so I got busy doing other stuff, and now it is too hot and too muggy to go out and harvest. So, I'll go out early tomorrow morning and harvest, and then I can spend the whole weekend canning the harvest. Bon, We're still in Extreme Drought as well, and our county's mesonet station has recorded quite a bit more rain this year than we've had at our place. This rainfall this week was very welcome. I had watered the garden twice in the last week, heavily both times and was dreading the water bill that would result, and still the garden wilted every day---including wilting on the day after I watered. It is just too hot and windy for the irrigation to be enough. Without rainfall, I think my garden will die. So, today's rainfall should be enough to keep it alive another week or so. It also will help prevent us from progressing from Extreme to Exceptional Drought. As of the end of June, we have had less rainfall for the Jan-June period than we had in the awful, hot, terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year of 2011.....and less rainfall for that period than we had in 2003, when our rainfall for the entire year was a little under 19". Today's rainfall should push our year-to-date rainfall ahead of at least 2011's, though maybe not 2003's. Our temperatures this year are very similar to 2003's so the heat is not nearly as bad as it was in 2011. I'm hoping for great rainfall in July to continue. Even one decent rainfall per week will be the difference in whether the garden produces well or if it just barely clings to life with irrigation but doesn't produce well. Irrigation can only carry a garden so far. There's a 4" plant available water feature on one of the Mesonet rainfall map pages. Essentially, if your number on that map is less than 0.50, you should be watering. Our number has been around 0.25 to 0.28 for almost all of June and July---even after we had 3.5" of rain over a 2-day period in June it never even made it back to 0.50. I've tried to avoid looking at that map because it is just depressing. I water the bare minimum I can get away with watering because it doesn't do the plants any good if I water very heavily and push them into producing a lot of thick, lush growth that then will demand more and more and more water. Usually by the time we hit Extreme Drought, I stop watering and let most of the garden just die, but we usually don't hit Extreme Drought until later in the summer. I am not ready to give up on the garden yet this year, but the day is coming where I'll pull the plug on watering. If enough rain falls, maybe I won't have to do that. This week's rain is great right now, but in the heat next week, it will dry up very quickly and we'll be back to looking like we're in drought (which we are). After yesterday's rain, our Mesonet station made it up to 0.44 so I think that after today's rainfall, we've be above 0.50 for the first time in a long time, but I also think it won't last long. How dry is it? Even the crabgrass leaves were rolling up and I was starting to think/hope the crabgrass was going to die. Now that rain has fallen, I am sure the crabgrass will continue on its quest for world domination. Dawn

Last I've heard, they've updated to forcast for the Philly area to 3-6" The warm front is moving much slower than expected. Down where we are, we've had snow since about 10 this morning. By now, grass, cars and roofs are coated. Looks so pretty. Am going to have DH turn on the christmas lights soon. Don't have any place to go, myself, and am making cookies this afternoon. Great day for it