Indoor Garden Supply in Dexter, Michigan

Ever wonder where all those awesome PermaNest trays and slick looking light stands that hold them perfectly in place come from? Well that's where we are right now! Indoor Garden Supplies is the company that manufactures the goodies then sells them wholesale to the places (like John Cook of Cape Cod Violetry) where us regular plant freaks can get our hot little mitts on 'em. We're picking up some of those trays & vented domes for selling in Nashville!

Oh man, some day I WILL get at least one, hopefully a couple of their stands, they are a dream! To me, they've always been the "holy grail" or Cadillac of plant stands.
:-)

And The Adventure Begins...

Greyhound from here at home in Portland, Maine to Boston, then another bus to New Bedford, MA to meet up with John Cook of Cape Cod Violetry, then to CT to pick up Fran, then to Michigan to pick up CCV supplies....

THEN we're off to Nashville, TN for the 2014 AVSA National convention! YEEEEEEE-HAWWWWWW!!!

And yes I am fully aware that I look a hot mess, there's no point in doing anything with my hair or putting on even a spec of makeup when I'm gonna be on a road trip all over half the country for 2 days, thank you very much!

Starting sometime Wednesday, stay tuned here on fuzzyfoliage.com for live updates from the convention, as always! 

Fair warning tho--I am only 2 weeks post-op, so I'm not going to be able to run all over the place like I usually do. In fact I'm doing what I call the "slow azz geriatric shuffle". Hope no one who sees it makes fun of me, or worse--think I'm mocking them! :-P But yeah, if this year's updates aren't quite as in-depth as years past, I apologize. I appreciate all my blog followers, and I really love trying to keep those that can't make it to conventions see and feel a part of some of the magic, but it's not worth busting a stitch &  bleeding out over, sorry. :-) I will do the very best I can tho, promise. Thanks in advance for understanding!

Goodbye Ursula Higgenbottom!

Finally had my hysterectomy yesterday (in case you didn't know, my uterus' name is Ursula Higgenbottom and she'd been bothering me for years) Also got a bladder sling. Yay, it's TMI blog day!

Anyways, I gotta get better so I can be in Nashville for the AVSA National Convention soon! I might be walking a little funny, but I won't miss it if I can help it!!

Best Mini - OMG!

Wow wow wow I won Best Mini at the Windsor AVS show!!! It's my highest award yet, I'm totally flipping out!!!

Squeeeeeee--I grew that!!

If you're near the Windsor CT area come check out the show tomorrow! We've got a ton of LLG plants for sale!!!

Setting Up The Show...

Getting everything in place for the Windsor African Violet Society's annual show, which will be judged tomorrow morning and then open to the public on Saturday.
Doreen is doing entries, I'm doing classifications, and everyone else gets to do the worst part: Placement (then rearranging, then placement, then rearranging some more.) Eff that!
Entries & classifications is where it's at, suckaaaaaaz!

I entered 5 plants. I woulda had better luck entering what I grabbed at LLG yesterday, but I had witnesses that knew I got them yesterday, so I couldn't pull it off.

April 2014 Visit To Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses!

Yay!! Pics from my visit to Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses! (As usual. click pics to biggerize)

My buddy Rocky was like, stuck on me!
I walked around wearing him like a fancy purring stole for like 20 minutes.

Some of the new 2014 LLG intros!!

Instant Attraction

Free Falling

No Regrets

Hawaiian Cloud

Geyser of Color

Twinkle Twirl

Brother's Bond

Brother's Bond again, 'cos lookit the size of that flower!

High Expecations

Circus Fascination

Irish Lassie

Sister's Secrets

Here's a buncha pics from around the greenhouses. What a sight it was, everything was in FULL BLOOM!! Hard to capture in pics, waaaaaay better in-person. If you ever get a chance to go visit, DO IT!

Bipolar Plant™ needs to take its meds!

Me & Paul--HAI ERRYONE!!

Aaaaaaand one more Rocky snuggle pic, just for good measure.

And I know you're all wondering what I got while I was there...

I left a couple plants there, I swear... 

Hope you all enjoyed this virtual visit!!

Note: This is a back-dated entry, I actually went three weeks ago, but I've been busy preparing my life for upcoming scary surgeries on my GirlyBits™ in a coupla weeks, and then convention a coupla weeks after that. I'm really sorry for not getting it up sooner. But at least I finally did!

Guess Where I Went Today.....

Here's a hint: I snapped this selfie while I was ALL ALONE in the special back room.... 

"Hay, Sorano--All your chimeras are belong to meeeeee!"

Yep, yep. Had a great visit to Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses today.

You'll have to wait a few days for all the pics I took, I'm having myself a VERY busy violet week! 

THEM'S SOME BIG 'OL PLANTS!!

SORRY FOR ALL CAPS BUT HOLY SMOKES, THESE ARE HUUUUUUGE!!!

You might remember last August when I visited Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses, Paul Sorano pushed some huge azz plants on me I got my first standard sized African violets. It's been quite a learning experience! Here are the two of the biggest now (click pics to biggerize)..

This one is a bit over 11" at the biggest part,  HOLY CRAP MAN!
Yes, I know I need to remove some outer damaged leaves and then it will be smaller.

It's pretteh.

And this one is a little over 10".
If it gets more flowers, and the leaves relax & go a bit flatter, I *might* have a showplant here.

It is also pretteh.

So yeah, WOW MAN! They sure do take up a lotta room, but the show they're putting on for me is kinda worth it.

Plants Plants Plants 3.22.14

OMG OMG OMG OMG GUESS WHAT!? noID #2 is blooming! What is noID #2? And who cares? It's the 2nd African violet I ever bought (just a week or two after noID #1, back in Feb of '07) and here's the kicker--It's NEVER ONCE bloomed for me in 7 years. Sure it had a flower or two when I bought it, but never again have I seen it do anything but sucker. Ok it's not that exciting. But it kinda is. To me. Shut up.

Here it is! noID #2. Are you over it? Ok.

 So here's what's currently happening on other areas of my plant stand:

The standards are nice & flowery.
I'm sure I won't get them to a show (even if I could manage to time the flowering, I don't drive, so transporting them would be nearly impossible) it's ok--I'm still having fun with these and learning new things. And I've got a ton more to learn, so good.

Untamed Heart is pretteh. That flower is gigantic!
Like, I have full grown plants smaller than that hahaha

Micro sinnies. Let's keep it bloomin', guys!
*wishwishwish*

Last but not least, this little guy is still hanging in there...Will it still look cute 3 weeks from now for the Windsor African Violet Club's show in Connecticut? Who knows? 

So that's what's happening here. How are your plants doing? What shows are you looking forward to attending this spring season? Get at me, bruh!

Plants Plants Plants 3.12.14

Blah blah blah, I haven't updated for a while, yadda yadda yadda.

Ok now that that's outta the way, remember that time I was trying to grow showplants but I disbudded them way too long? Well, guess what.. One month from today there's a show I want to enter, and it seems I've gone in the opposite direction by stopping the disbudding too early. GAHD! Will I ever manage grow a really good African violet for a show??

Well anyways, here's the haps around my shelves at the moment. Click to biggerize!

Top shelf - Quarantine dome and standards. You'd think by now I'd let the quarantine patients out into the gen pop, but I'm still to skurrd. And I haven't heard any complaints from them. Out of the five standards on the top shelf, the four that mighta made acceptable showplants have at least 1 open flower each. Thinking they'll be all bloomed out by the show date. (Please just avert your eyes from that scraggly thing in the middle, I dropped it on the floor a month ago and have been too lazy to repot it.)

2nd shelf down - Misc things in domes. We'll come back to that one awesome one in the middle toward the end of this post. Thinking no good show candidates here, two of the micro sinnies are blooming great, but there's no way they'll be doing that a month from now. 

3rd shelf down - Sinny dome and misc African violets. Couple of really nice chimeras blooming nicely, or least just about to. But the foliage is kinda unruly from neglect, so I can forget showing those, too. Also, ignore that one standard in the front it's terrible and it's all my fault haha!

Bottom shelf - Minis & semis. I have a tiny shred of hope for the one in the back left corner, and maybe a couple others. Commence crossing fingers, eyes, legs, and bewbz!

Ok, I told you we'd come back to that one awesome one from the 2nd shelf down. THIS one makes me squeal with both delight and sorrow. How cute would that have been on a show table?? Ahhh, man. Oh well, at least I can enjoy it all by myself in the kitchen and show it off to people reading my blog, right?

I gotta say while I may not have anything worth a toss to enter, I am completely looking forward to the show! It'll be the first one for me of 2014, and if you're in New England maybe you'd like to come check it out. It's the Windsor African Violet Society Annual Show & Sale and it's one day only--April 12th from 8:30am until 12:30pm at 311 Broad St, Windsor, Connecticut 06095. Come check it out if you can!