Hi, Currently looking for tropical hibiscus seeds, preferably something other then plain red. I plan on having a few, maybe 2 or 3 that i will keep on the porch and then bring in in winter but I thought I'd see if someone had seeds they'd be willing to trade before I buy plants next year! Its always more fun to grow your own :) Also looking for perennial delphinium or any perennial poppies(besides red preferably) seeds :) ~Michael My seed list: http://members.gardenweb.com/members/exch/heavenlyfarm

---To decide what species if in question, I would (and do) use an image search. 100 different pics of hummers visiting the same one should guide you in the right direction.--- Perhaps you are not aware of the practice, but many photographs of hummingbirds feeding at flowers actually have a commercial feeder hidden behind them. Those sneaky photographers! ;^) That way they can have the flash units and camera set up where the hummingbird is pre-conditioned to feed. I always chuckle when I see flowers that naturally grow upright, hanging upside-down in the photographs. This wasn't meant to take your thread off-track, but to highlight that the popular photography flowers may not be hummer favorites.

Ironic that so many of us temperate gardeners would love to be able to grow the wealth of tropicals from Brazil. Even a garden in the tropics doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the possibilities. I wouldn't waste my time, personally, and would follow the example of Roberto Burle Marx, and celebrate the diversity of your native flora. I've spent time in Sao Paulo and Rio, and lived in Salvador, Bahia; so I've seen how roses, camellias, azaleas, etc seem to be a sentimental favorite amongst so many Brazilians. In my opinion, they always look out of place, and never as good as some of the local natives or tropicals from elsewhere around the world. I suspect the urge to grow what isn't really climate appropriate has more to do with seeming to be a master gardener and controlling nature, or simply horticultural one-upmanship, to show that you can do it when others can't. Or is it just a sort of "saudade" for what you grew up with? Where the temperate stuff looks best,(or at least grows the best), is at higher elevations where it actually cools off at night sufficient to get temperate plants to grow well. I've seen apple plantations, agapanthus, hydrangeas, even some of our California natives such as Monterey Pines, Monterey Cypress, etc looking beautiful in the high mountains of Sri Lanka and the islands of Java and Bali, or the Hill Stations of Malaysia.

Could be; I realized after posting that of course, the plants in this scene could be fake too! But they didn't look like it. I think this is a real low-elevation tropical garden somewhere in Malaysia or Thailand. Something about the floppiness of flowers reminds me of those huge begonias you see in greenhouses; though the foliage doesn't match. Don't these flowers look 'fatter' than Ixora?