moving this down....

oh, delightful. must make more of an effort with my sadly ramshackle version (although the green roof project is proceeding slowly).

Thank you all so much. The compliments are more than generous, and much appreciated! This is indeed an annual show. In fact, all of the local societies have an annual show and sale down here in Southern California. It ends up being a whole season of shows, lasting late spring to late summer! I suspect I will do much better next year as well. Mostly because the two people who beat me will be forced to move up into Advanced, while I still get another year as a Novice. Plus, I am intending to enter *two* car loads next year! ;-) I can't speak to any other club's show, but the way it works at ours is pretty casual. On Friday, you bring in each of your plants and place them on the appropriate table. Then you fill out a little card, yellow for novice and purple for advanced, with your name and scientific name of the plant. You simply place the card with your plant and voila! its entered. You take a final count and write your name and the number of plants you've entered on the master list and your done. Hauling the plants is a lot of work, especially for those of us interested in fat plants. I suppose it ends up being a painful experience for all those cacti growers too. What is truly amazing is the amount of work the vendors put in hauling their wares and show plants. These people are moving a dozen flats of 4" plants, *plus* a bunch of gorgeous show plants too. I suppose a number of plants get damaged in the move, but so long as you are careful, it isn't like anything really gets ruined. I had a pot tip over (that really tall Dorstenia) but I just repotted it there, it wasn't a big deal. For the risk involved, the reward of sharing our plants with a curious public and the adulation of your peers is well worth it. While there is no formal rule about what type of container your plant is in, there is a deeply ingrained tradition of using relatively muted, earth-toned ceramic pots. More and more the pots are being considered as much a part of the hobby as the plants themselves. Actually, for all I know, it has always been like that, but even in my short experience that would seem to be the case. Technically, only 10% of the plants "score" is from staging, but in practice, that just isn't true. There was a particular guy at this show who had some really stellar plants in pretty unique pots. I personally loved them, I know some others did too. The judges on the other hand, hated them. Time after time, plants that should have won on their own merits, were losing to plants with more conventional pots. Given that condition is supposed to account for 70%, and size/difficulty account 15% it is hard to deny that the container and staging factor more into what plants win than what is stated in the rules. In short, there were a couple of plants there in plastic nursery pots, but if you want to be one of the "cool kids," you've got to stage your stuff in fancy oxide-stained ceramic! :-) I quite often forget the stupendous luck I have in living in SoCal. Even a small show like ours is really full of some amazing plants that could easily be among the world's best. I wish that everyone on this forum could experience a show, but between geography and climate, it just isn't possible. For those of you lucky enough to be able to participate in a local club or show, it is an opportunity you shouldn't pass up. For everyone else, all I can do is post pictures!

Jane, The male Cowbird would be completely black with a chocolate brown head. Both of the pics above would be females. The juvies are similar to the females but have lots of striping according to my book. Not great birds to have around during nesting season as they are parasitic brooders. They don't build their own nest. Instead, they lay their eggs inside the nests of other birds, and then the other bird species feeds and raises their chicks. The Cowbird egg hatches first, and this decreases the survival chances of the nest builder's own offspring as the parents have been slaving away feeding the big hungry Cowbird chick, often causing their own to starve.