James, I have no issues with the heat because they grow inside my house. I never put them outside, even for a couple of minutes. I grow them in a spare room that has a large window that gets early morning sun. I also have them under cheap grow lights that clip onto something that's near the plants. The grow lights take an ordinary grow bulb or you can use those long square grow light bulbs. Either type will work and the total cost is really cheap. Ever since I found out about the water my plants are growing fast. I use only organic fert. since the other types of fert. can burn the roots. The organic can not burn the roots. A guy that I purchase miltoniopsis plants from told me that since most tap water is purified to get rid of bacteria and other things most tap water contains chlorine and chorline burns the delicate roots. I never thought about this before and since I found out about chlorine being in most tap water, this makes sense plus you can smell the faint odor of chlorine in the tap water. I can't tolerate the heat so I stay inside and I set my thermostat at 70 degrees. If I'm happy with the temps. the plants are probably happy too. I almost forgot one important issue. I have a humidifier working 24 hours. It's a real cheap humidifier that I purchased off of Etsy. The humidifier looks like a fat white stick. I stick it in an old plastic water jug and you can see the mist coming out. Apparently it works real well. I can't tell you the brand because it came in a company box and everything is in Chinese including the instructions. I think that the humidifier cost me around five bucks. My set up is cheap but I haven't killed any plants. I currently have about seven plants putting out spikes. I have about twenty plants and I don't want anymore. I'll probably get another one only if the flower color appeals to me or if it's a cross that I don't have.

I just figured out the easiest way to do mine. We have strong winds at times, but the house will shelter some of it. My half gallon jugs, I thought I'd cut the right length of twine or some nylon cord and tie easy loops in each end. Then I'll wrap the twine around all the jugs and use a twistie to secure the loops, tying them all together. May do another level of it in case it slips down, can run the twine through the handles of the jugs on the perimeter. I hope it will work. I can easily open it up to check plants more closely, read labels, or move the whole group, etc., and just twist them back together again. I guess I can just pick out any jug in the group, lift it up, inspect it, deal with anything needed, and just slip it back in again without untying. When I get to the pepsi bottles, I may do the same thing rather than try to stick them in a box or burn holes in something I'd rather not. As I start planting out, I can just shorten the twine and tie another loop at one end and twist together again. I'm just setting them on the sidewalk for now, hope they'll drain ok, probably better than they would have when I set them on the ground. The ground can get saturated from melting snow and cause the water in the jugs not to drain very well or maybe I'm wrong about that.

Yesterday was Boxing Day here in Auckland, New Zealand. At 11:30 am my son and I had a glass of water in my clean kitchen and left the house. There were no flies to be seen. In fact, we use a gentle plant scent that bugs dislike to keep them out and it works. There are no chemicals in the scent. 3 hours later we returned to a kitchen floor just full of dead flies. They were everywher. At least 45 of them. Today, it happened within a half hour from when I had a breakfast bagel, to when I got up for water. We do not have a heat source, or gas source anywhere in the house. It’s warm here (summer time). Any ideas??

Oceanna, I sure you noticed the glass globes in the pics. I use those for most of my watering needs. When I leave for vacation I actually take the small plastic water or tea bottles, drill a hole in the top and invert them for extra water. Every once in a while I put a drop of fertilizer in the globe. I had an orchid that was doing wonderfully until the hot weather finally hit (about July this year) and burned it's leaves. So it's a no go for my garden window location. However, they are all flowering, even the begonia, so they seem to love their location and the mix of water/nutrients. So you might try the globes. That's the only thing I use on the african violet. The lipstick plant is voracious in it's need for water, so I end up supplementing. I have the globes in two different lengths. So size the stem to the pot you plan to use. Also, I don't know if the short and longer versions are made by the same manufacturer.