Susie, thank you for your wonderful comment.

Mark (wallisadi) will live forever in our gardens.....

From our parties, the picture of him that comes to mind is when he was telling all of us about growing the plant treasures that he used to bring to the garden parties.

Those were some good times!

This morning in my front porch, all his plants smiling at me but I have tears in my eyes. The cactus was his father's.

Oh, I didn't know you meant wallisadi. I'm so sorry to hear this. I never knew him personally but he was so helpful on GW.

Thank you Writersblock for your kind words. When we went to visit his garden, you could feel all the love and care that him and his wife put it there. There were surprises everywhere, he was an animal lover too...

Oh my! I surely will miss him. I seem to remember him saying he had cancer some time back. Was that it? I don't think I ever met him. I went to very few garden swaps, and never came to one of yours. I do remember him so fondly from the forums, though. What a loss.

Deb, he was a very private man and I really don't know the cause of his passing.

The garden parties were a lot of fun! and I had them for a few years since I live here. Later on my dogs got older and the forums changed.

When he came to my house, I always had banana breads for him.:)

Silvia, after looking again at your video, I realized that the begonia you sent to me is the same as the one in his garden. Did you get it from him, or vice versa?

Deb, you got good eyes! and yes, that begonia is the same that he gave me few years back. It gets beautiful and tall.

Here is a picture of the last garden party October 2015, Mark is there and since I respect his family's privacy, I am not going to say who he is.

I don't recognize anyone, but then, we were on opposite coasts, so had different garden swap groups. My begonia is almost 6 feet tall (had to stake it) and has several nice lower branches. I can't believe how fast it grew from that tiny cutting! I'm hoping it blooms next year. It makes me happy to know I have a descendant of a piece of his garden, and a part of yours.

Silvia, what a beautiful tribute. I never met Mark but enjoyed his posts. Rest in peace, Mark.

Thank you Rhonda for your kind words. A little bit more about the Mark that I knew, he loved all animals and he made sure he made a habitat for everyone. When I saw one space on his garden, he had a little room outdoors with happy snakes! I think that I screamed! lol

He made sure he gave me butterfly plants, the popcorn cassia, the porterweeds, all the color firespikes, and a group of orange justicia and told me to plant them together. He was like a living school of learning about plants.

He did tell me he sucked on growing edibles, and those were his words,lol

He is looking at us from the gardens of heaven, and instead of being sad, it is good to celebrate his life.

If he sucked at growing edibles, he and I had something in common. I remember him once commenting that no one ever talked about flowers anymore, just veggies. All of us flower lovers spoke up then and we had a lovely conversation.

He was a master at propagation, he said he liked cuttings any day before seeds. The same day that we took those pictures in his garden, he took us to a beautiful sunny, flower garden that was one of his neighbors.

He then explained that his garden was mostly shade garden, that was the reason the other garden look different in the sun. He also said that it was high maintenance and that she was always changing flowers.

Then I told him, that I prefer his garden ....

Mark gave me this Plumeria Pudica when I visited his yard years ago. He was a very nice man.

Jhl, it was so nice of you to remember Mark, your plumeria is probably part of the huge one that he had. I remember him telling me how he covered them from the cold, he was in zone 9a after all.

Yes, he was in 9a and had to bring in so many plants , it gets cold where he lived. I used to live 20 minutes away from him . The original plant he gave me was old it died 2 months ago. I am glad that I had a chance to reproduce it before it died. I have to keep reproducing the plant so that I'll always a good lasting memory of him.

Jhl, what a great story about your plant!

He had many interesting trees on his property, one of them the silk floss and he favored the lemon eucalyptus and he talked me into getting them. So it was done, and I did not stop there and got the rainbow eucalyptus too. But I have to tell you the lemon one went out with a wind storm and the rainbow with a hurricane. Needless to say, they are not for me.

I have a begonia showcase thanks to him, and around this time of the year the ground orchid puts on a show of blooms, and he also gave me a clivia that always blooms for me. Memories are richer than gold...

The bromeliads that Mark gave me a cutting are flowering again, and there is the face! lol

Gorgeous ! Memories to treasure.

Such a lovely video! He will surely be missed.

Thank you Jhl and Sultry, you are so thoughtful!

When Mark came to the garden parties, we gave him violets that we grow indoors and he graciously took them but after he was so worried that he killed them all, lol.

He said, I have put them everywhere, this light, that light, this thing or another and nothing! they don't like me.:)

Well, this morning I have violets for Mark, they are happy at my house.:)