I am a commercial nursery and have a comment on both issues. USPS is sending their packages FedEx so that is the reason for the volumne pricing. Air freight has always been priced by volumne or weight whichever is higher. Shipping cost is high for a single plant but usually you can ship 5-6 for the same price. I recently had a dozen 4 foot tall grammatophyllum in bud shipped FedEx second day air from Hawaii (actually a day and a half with time changes)that weighed 8 pounds a piece. Shipping $7 each and 1.50 of that was box and packing charge. FedEX got $5.50 for each 8 pound plant. I have to compete with other growers and most including myself cap their shipping cost at $25 a shipment. As to specimum plants, it is just not profitable to grow them. A rough rule of thumb for a grower is that your cost of the plant doubles every year. So a $15 4 inch cattleya goes to an 8 inch pot in 3-4 years so the retail value would be 15-30-60-120. No one will pay $120 so most Florida (and Hawaiian) growers are not raising anything past 4 inch pots. Anything larger just was difficult to sell - not truely grown as a specimum. Also 2 eight inch pots take the same space as 15 4 inch pots or 40 2 inch pots. It is not hard to get $15 each for the 4 inch pots or $7 for 2 inch pots. Even with acreage, table space is expensive. As to rare, you all see mericlones offered. Any orchid (with the current exception of paphs and phrags) can be cloned. If it is 'rare' I can get you 2000 clones (minimumm order for cloning). Rare is usually the term used for "scare because so few people what to buy it". If it was popular it would be available.

Hello :) I used to sell on ebay and was very active from 1999 to 2006 but used to sell on a small personal scale until a few years ago when the cost of fees jumped up too much for me. I've never sold hoyas or plants so I can't help you with that but I can give you a hint. You can basically figure out if a profit is possible now for you. Check out ebay seller section help for information about selling and find out what the cost is for all the seller fees. Also, check out paypal to find out what the cost is when people use that to pay you. I remember as of a few years ago Paypal used to be free as long as you didn't sell very much. When I started to sell enough regularly to make it all profitable for a small scale person, I incurred their fees too (could be totally different now?) Also check the "usual" seller charge for shipping the plants. Then take a plant of your own, wrap it properly for shipping, and see what it will cost YOU to actually ship it (supplies needed-you may be surprised how much all the little stuff costs if you don't reliably have it laying around the house each and every day, cost of gas and actual postage) Since you are mailing plants you should know, legally, what states you can and can't mail them to. Also overseas information if you want to deal with that. I've found most of the people at the post office incredibly helpful answering questions even though I might not be mailing anything right then. Just don't show up with only questions at a really busy time :) Honestly, this is a true pain, but it's really worth the time to find out (..basically..) what this will cost to do so you don't end up actually losing money in the end. Ebay is definately not always a win situation. Either way, I used to figure out what the listing fee would be for the item which is paid even if it doesn't sell (research what other people are selling it for in auction, store and buy it now), what the fee would be if I sold it at that average price, and what the paypal fee would be when I was paid, then add what I needed for how many HOURS, sometimes it took DAYS, a week it would take to do everything correctly, with no errors, and promptly (I had over a 1000 positive rating at 100%, being very prompt and polite is important), then figure in what the item cost you (cost of original plant plus cost of grow lights/electric, pots, soil, time...). Then I could determine what I would have to sell it for in order to make any money. I'd then compare this to other peoples items to find out what they charge. On a small scale it really is hard to compete with large scale sellers and make a profit. I'd think you should be able to recoup your plant purchasing money by selling enough started plants or cuttings. Not sure if you could make much of a profit if adding in cost of electric, pots, soil, time etc (you're buying all this stuff at small scale prices) and still be able to sell it at a competitive price. One of the things I used to sell was pieces of unusual very pricey fabric that I bought in order to cover the cost of my buying it. I always did that, no problem. I also sold some of my own hand dyed fabric - with what it cost me to make it on a small scale there was never a profit there, I just ended up with my own "extra" fabric. Ebay is really easy to do once you figure it out. My problem was I wasn't also covering the cost for all my TIME trying to sell it on ebay (listing, you'd be surprised how many emails including buyers that don't pay - you still pay the fees so you have to take the time to fight it through ebay, and mailing) in order to be competitive to reliably sell it. I covered my basic costs and made a profit as long as my time was free. At one point in my life my time no longer was free. Hence, I quit donating my time selling. It can be done, or not. Hopefully someone here has small seller plant experience and can help. Good luck :)

The logical question to ask yourself when you can't find something you're seeking is "why" as in "why don't they sell them here?". I think your answer is they don't sell them because of a lack of consumer demand for them. In general, cutting-grown chrysanthemums are the rule rather than the exception because they have the qualities sought in bedding plants. There are some varieties available from seed. They may or may not grow well in our climate. You would have had to start the seed last fall or maybe in late winter/early spring to have plants that are blooming size for late summer/autumn of 2011. You might try the websites of Thompson & Morgan USA or Burpee. In the past they've had a few varieties of chrysanthemum seeds.

Susan I think there's been glitches in the search feature and even with posting for a while now. Not sure what the problem is.