A quick follow-up -- I ordered something like 200 Dutch Iris several years ago, all one color, a deep blue/purple. I felt like a fool getting so many! I didn't treat them well, so only have far less than that original 200, but those come back faithfully for me every year, and get AWESOME! They bloom in Mid March for me. I was so thrilled with them last year that I decided to order more and then bought extras from Lowe's/Home Depot when theirs went on sale. The bulb size from Van Engelen was smallish, but okay. The ones from Lowe's/HD were TINY in comparison. Ya' get what you pay for. I need to re-arrange a lot of beds, so, IF I can find/dig up the old bulbs, I'm sure the labels are gone. I'll have a rainbow in my field! If you can keep them from year to year, I think they get taller & stronger stemmed each year, at least my old blue/purple ones do. Good luck. Susi. I think I got the original 200 from a place called Marlboro Bulbs out of one of the Carolinas. I think they might have changed their name. I got a bunch of Daffs from them too. It advertised in Growing for Market or the ASCFG quarterly. I no longer get either and haven't re-ordered. No problems w/ the quality--I think they're one of those places where you have to order 200's of some things, and I didn't have that foresight to order in those quantities.

FYI: There's a WIP (work in progress) by Tex Norwood and others notable plumerians to catalog photos and descriptions - see plumeriaid.com. He's also put together a community-driven plumeria portal (also WIP) at plumeriasales.com, which includes sales, trades, events, docs, etc. Much of this is being driven by several Facebook groups (both public and hidden). As always, Laura, thanks for the kind words, and hope to see you out here again some day. In the interest of being a good end user, it's useful to define requirements before designing the solution (ha- too many years in high tech). What do I want to accomplish? 1 - from the description and photos, decide if I interested 2 - prevent duplicates due to AKAs or 'very similar' 3 - decide if it is suitable to my growing conditions 4 - make recommendations 5 - ID unknowns (with usual caveats) 6 - understand risks (e.g. BT, bud drop, vitality) Flower description - PSA has certainly defined the language and process, as have the Oz folks. However, this applies to the 'One True Bloom'. There's certainly more that can be added, but it does provide an excellent vetted baseline for what the flower should look like. ID an unknown - providing a best-guess of a named variety requires much more info: back of bloom, leaf, bark color, etc. That's where we need much more baseline info. Add to that the zillions of unnamed plants. However, if you purchase from a reputable dealer / hobbyist, there's a good chance it was a named variety, and can be ID'd. To root or not to root: which varieties should / must be grafted, and which ones make good graft hosts. Nice to know info: 'parentage' so when getting seeds I know which produced winners; 'source' for tracking down a rare plant or to give credit for some awesome new ones. I think it would be very cool to be able to bring up photos of known seedlings. Permutations - This is a biggie: whether regional, heat/cold related, humidity, it's easy to see that blooms can look completely different due to growing conditions. Capture that info, it's very useful. This is my personal axe to grind, and why each of my plants gets 3 bloom cycles to prove itself. If my notes say 'needs heat', I don't even get the plant. The list Laura refers to is a tracking file: # tips, if it bloomed, # inflos, BT, source, and so on. At the end of every year, I ruthlessly ponder, thin the herd and send selected plants to a new (usually warmer) home. BTW, if anyone wants a copy of my notes, just drop me a pm. irun5k et al: I'm chatting with a few non-GWers to gauge both the level of interest, feasibility and willingness to contribute (important!). Love your comments. ivysmon: thanks for unleasing this discussion, and to answer your original question, here's my notes, and note the contradictions due to growing conditions... Bill Moragne, Sr. #156 AKA William Moragne Sr. William Moragne, Bill Moragne, Sr. Pink, elliptical moderately overlapped petals, 2 ½ to 3”. Upturned inner edges and heavy dark pink veins. Petals blend from dark pink to white. Red-purple stripes on the reverse and a yellow eye. Strong grape fragrance. Keeping quality is good with an average tendency to fade. Tall grower with thick branches. Can be difficult to root. Should be grafted. Branching is below average. Oblanceolate leaves are medium green with acuminate tips. Pod parent: Daisy Wilcox. Pollen parent: Scott Pratt. 2 1/2-3" pink rainbow with grape cool aid fragrance. Striking multi-rainbow color with rounded petals about 3 - 3 ½”. Develops one of the biggest flower heads. Extremely difficult to root. Cuttings are almost impossible to root. Incredibly large clusters. Medium tree. The inflorescence is huge! Very beautiful rainbow with heavy veining. brilliant pinks, white and golds. Fragrance is sweet and intense. Grows fast and strong. Wonderful addition to anyone's collection. 4" and blooms in tight bunches. Recommended for fragrance. Needs to be well established to bloom. Varies depending on humidity and heat. Pale almost like a Mardi Gras until heat/humidity turns it red. Bill was married to Jean. His daughter in law was Jeannie. His daughters were Mary M. Cooke, Sally M. Mist, and Katie M. Bartness. The granddaughters were" Edi (Cooke), Julie (Cooke), Cindy, Kimi, Cathy and Kelly. Slow grower.

I have a unnamed H. vernalis and one struggling H. x intermedia 'Diane', and the H. virginiana grow wild and so there are zillions of them. As far as color here, the H. virigniana is a beautiful clear yellow, and the best ones bloom after the leaves have fallen with relatively large yellow flowers, but no perceptible scent to me. The winter silhouette is quite nice. I really like them. My H. x intermedia (struggling since we are at or perhaps past its northern limit) has a consistently gorgeous orange/yellow/red mix of foliage color and deep red-orange spring flowers that stand out against the remaining snow. Color is a bit too blue in this photo. H. x intermedia 'Diane' From garden photos 07 If H. intermedia were hardier or my area warmer, I would plant many of these, and I may plant more, hoping to find some that are a bit hardier. Fall color may depend on the soil (mine is acid fine sandy loam) or some other factor, IDK. Here's a yellow H. x intermedia (not mine, but at the airport 35 miles south of me - different microclimate) pruned to tree form. From witch hazels My H. vernalis is the least attractive of the bunch. From garden photos 07 Flowers are tiny (to compare this photo with 'Diane' above, realize that the base holding the petals is almost twice as large for 'Diane' as for the vernal witch hazel) and pale reddish orange from a distance, though en mass they do show against the evergreens behind them. I haven't found the scent particularly attractive, sort of like cheap soap. It also tends to keep almost half its leaves, though I may try to remove some of them once they are thoroughly dry this winter. No appreciable fall color. Even though I live on an old farm and actively garden on a couple of acres, I wouldn't waste the space or money on another of these. Perhaps some named varieties would be better or you will have better luck with your seedlings than I. Blooming H. vernalis (yes it needs pruning) From witch hazels H. vernalis fall color From witch hazels So my order of preference is H. x intermedia (assuming finding one hardy enough to grow well here) H. virginiana H. vernalis YMMV This post was edited by nhbabs on Sun, Dec 7, 14 at 11:01

There are only three types of Redwoods: Coastal Redwood, Sequoia, Chinese Dawn Redwood. There is no "best" redwood, they all have advantages and disadvantages. Redwoods are beautiful trees, but they take up a lot of space to grow because of their roots. Redwoods can grow in Southern California but they require a lot of water or they'll turn brown and die. It only takes two years of neglect to kill them. Drought can also make them susceptible to insect infestation and disease, to which they may not recover and will eventually die, so even one year of neglect (not watering) can be fatal. One of the biggest issues is that they'll keep on growing and growing, and growing. In 20 years from now they may be far too big for a small yard, and can be very expensive to remove because of all the roots that have grown out near surface level. These roots can stretch out 20 feet, much more than that for large older trees, leading to issues. You have to really like redwoods and be prepared to deal with a lot of yard issues (or spend a lot of money) to have a redwood, unless you have a big yard. Oh, and be resigned to have a really tall tree. You can not, or should not, top a redwood to make it shorter. It would lead to safety hazard issues later, as the branches that will grow out of the top cut will be at risk of snapping off and falling as they grow too heavy.