Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences! My conclusion is...you folks definitely need some more Hoyas/Dischidias! Therefore, I highly recommend going to visit Kartuz Greenhouses down in Vista. It's definitely worth the trip. His online catalog really does not adequately represent the great variety of tropical/interesting/unusual/rare plants that he grows. Plus, his prices are really reasonable so you can get a good collection going without having to pay an arm and a leg. If anybody is interested...I also posted this thread in the following places... Garden Web - Hoya Forum - Cold Tolerant Hoyas/Dischidias Growing on the Edge - Cold Tolerant Hoyas/Dischidias PalmTalk - Cold Tolerant Hoyas/Dischidias? Flickr - Epiphytes Group - Cold Tolerant Hoyas/Dischidias?

Gosh, most of our mandarins available in our area should do just fine, Dennis. Gold Nugget, Pixie, Page, Seedless Kishu, Yosemite Gold, and, of course, any Satsuma. I'm 6 miles from the coast, so further away, but I don't get that warm. It it hits 90, we're dying. All the above mandarins get very sweet here at my place. I do leave some of my citrus on the tree longer, but that's mainly oranges, grapefruits and grapefruit/pummelo hybrids. Patty S.

Dar, I wish hoyas were more abundant and easier to obtain from our local nurseries. But yes, do check out albomarginata! I think it's more beautiful than the normal variegated version. But then again, it could be just my preference lol. Mimalf, I totally agree with you. I would like to pick them up in person so I could see the quality of care they give to these plants, and also, to see if they look different than the pictures. Kim, I sent you an email :)

Wild: I grow tulips with my garlic, planting them at the same time, with tulips between the garlic varieties just planted quite a bit deeper. I also dig my tulips every year and they bloom every year, too; they do mature quite a bit earlier than the garlics do. I have to leave enough space so that digging the tulips does not impact the still active garlic. I dig the tulips at the beginning of yellow so I get the whole stem, which is easily a month and more ahead of digging the garlic, but they cure very much the same, on the same screens in fact. I keep my own tulip bulbs to plant back just like I keep my own garlic seed, in fact Istore the cured bulbs together more or less in the same place under the same conditions. So the comparison is not very far off, even though we are in significantly different climate zones. I have been more or less following Grey Duck for a couple of years, although I have not had the need to buy from them. I hope they return to business, but small family operations often reach some sort of impass and simply disappear. That happened to one in Wisconsin in the past couple of years too. There are also Whistling Duck, Red Gate, and of course Filaree as well as a very large number of other pretty well reputed online growers, most of whom are able to provide generally good cultural advise. One a bit different from most is http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/  Most of them will have some sort of cultural guide page set, and it is very interesting to look through those. Then there are the local county extension services available in most of the country, at least here in the Midwest they are and quite a few state agricultural publications from all over the country. You can probably tell from this forum there are several ways to grow garlic. Several successful techniques is true for most things human. The issue is to find the one that works best for you. One quick thought that you might be able to protect your favorites from wildlife by growing inside chicken wire or hardware cloth cages. I have had to do that here to protect my tomatoes from the local tree squirrels.