Your African Violets couldn't survive a week outdoors, even at the height of Summer, and, of course, still in their pots. They need the filtered light and constant temperatures of your window sills. And almost all of their cousins in the gesneriad tribe—gloxinias, flame violets, columneas, achimines—are of a similar mind. Unless you live in, say, Equador, where it's always about 75 and the humidity is good but not overwhelming, your window sill is your gesneriads' next best perch.

And then I discovered this sinningium, which is hardy in North Carolina, and is a big enough performer for me to crow over it, in a pot (the plant I mean), al the way up North in Rhode Island.Here's the plant abloom in June.

Tall stalks of dangling red tubular flowers, for a plant that's two feet high and wide.
(Take THAT, lowly African violets.)

And here is it, late August, even larger and still very creditably in bloom.
This is two months of bloom and we're not done yet either.
And those dangling flowers couldn't be more inviting, suspended so prominently on the tall and almost leafless stems.

There's also a yellow variety, 'Bananas Foster'.
And so of course I had to have it. And plenty of other colors and cousins too: Buy them here.

So far, 'Towering' and 'Bananas' are easy to handle. I let them go dormant before any serious frost is out there. Their large tubers can stay in the pot year-round, and I store the pot under the bench in the greenhouse. After they wake up, water, heat and sun are all they need. No pinching, no staking, no dead-heading. Just month after month of interesting-enough foliage, and seriously-interesting flowers.

With their easy and distinctive performance, I can see many more sinningia in my Summer gardens. Yours too I hope.