Hi there,  I'm new to the pov-ray newsgroups... but you seem like a friendly enough crowd.
 
With this in mind I have decided to offer this here picture for criticism.  Don't hold back, tell me how to make it the best pot plant ever... I was going for something like a Cantonese Lace. I used SplineTree and some scanned leaves for the plant, h.f. for the dirt, and csg for the pot.
 
The area light shadow of the foliage looks even grainier on a less compressed image.. how can I fix this? (make nice soft shadows)
 
Ian