Nice haul! I used to know someone who worked at THE Ohio State Univ. greenhouses and was blessed with cuttings and new plantings galore! That was great!

LOL! I have Peperomia prostrata growing in the terrarium with the hermit crabs. They leave it alone for the most part but it is a very nice terrarium plant as you stated!

Congratulations on the haul. Looks like you have even more work to do now! :-)

3D Chick

Lucky you, Bihai! I'm curious - what makes the one Dischidia crested? It looks like normal growth to me...

Denise in Omaha

You are so lucky to live in area that has so many nice hoya plants.Where I live its very had to get anything ( canada). Then I had idea, i will be in thailand in aug so I a got a permit from the canadian goverment to bring home same hoys and few other bits. But I just can not get any info on how to get the phytosanitary from the agricultural regulatory division in thailand.I want to just bring home unrooted cutting so no tests need to be done so i guess i will just wait untill I get there to find some one to help me. If it does not work out this time my permit is good untill 2010 so maybe there will be a next time. Have good week end. Cindy

Hi Guys

Here is a pic of my Dischidia like Bihai's. Someone told me it could be Dischidia rosea...anyway here it is.

Cheers
Sean

Whole Plant:

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Blooms:

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Cindy,
I have only ever gotten plants from Thailand through a group order placed from here to a Thai seller. I have a friend in Ft Lauderdale that owns a nursery and three of us went in on an order. Of course the Thai seller took care of all the export details, and my friend already had an import permit. Our big problem was getting the package from US Customs at the Port of Miami. Sometimes things get held up there, but we were lucky that the Ft Lauderdale third could go pick it up, otherwise we would have had to somehow arrange a courier (like UPS or whatever) to get it and ship it to one of us, adding still MORE box time to the order. I think that you will have to play it by ear. Dennis Cathcart of Tropiflora, a nursery in Sarasota, had a piece recently in his catalog (Cargo Report) about collecting and importing and how difficult it has become to wade through all the regulations of foreign governments.

In all honesty, Denise, I don't know what makes it crested! Its just what its called apparently. This one was labeled such, but until it blooms, its a toss up. It could be rosea, it could be another species. The botany dept is usually pretty good about having stuff ID'd, I was surprised that they didn't have the ID on the peperomias as that's a pretty hot species for terrariums.

Yes, we are lucky...I was not collecting hoya particularly the last time I was down in Miami at the Fairchild Garden Ramble or at the Marie Selby Garden's sale, and I did not get to go to the USF sale last weekend, but there are always vendors with cool unusual stuff here. I say "here"...not in NORTH FL where I live particularly but sure enough in Central and South FL. YOu just have to drive to it from here (and take a VAN because you will see too much cool stuff that you "need".

A friend of mine and I are planning to try to drive over to Bob SMoley's next month and try to get some of the ones on our want list. His nursery is only about 45 min-an hour away from us, but its by appointment as he maintains a show schedule. He was at out last Botanical Garden sale in March but only brought a few of his hoyas. I picked up a cummingiana from him.

Bihai, Thanks for the info. I hope every thing will work out for me becouse I have been just told that thailand has a one stop export service to help speed along every thing.I have all so been told that becouse I will be with the plants it is a bit easier with canadian customs when I return.I will just have wait and hope I that I can bring home some hoya plants. CINDY

Cindy,
since you are going all the way to Thailand, don't stop at looking at just Hoyas! Thailand is probably THE NUMBER ONE place for all sorts of great plants...aroids, orchids, gingers...its a great chance for you to collect some neato stuff. Just do a little research before you go to know what to select that will do well as indoor plants for you there. The Thai open air markets are supposed to be absolutely fantastic, according to fellow plant collectors I know who have actually been fortunate enough to go there.

Thanks for the encouagement bihai. Actually my permit allows me to bring back Alocasia, cananage, dischidia, hoya, orchidaceae, plumeria. But i can ammend this for 10 dollars if i want to add more plants. My zone is a very wet 8. So in the winter i throw all my burgs, orliander, and a few other tender plants that i want to keep from dieing outside in the wet. So im sure i can keep a few more plants alive in there. But definately not the few hoyas, or orchids and any other plants needed to be kept on the warmer side. Thoes ones stay in the house under grow lights.
Thanks,
Cindy

Hi All

Thailand is definitely a great place to go plant shopping. The Phyto certs that are needed can be obtained for a very small fee. The only trouble is the hassel of lining up for hours at the government offices. The open air market is a real haven for all sorts of wonderful plants like orchids, plumerias, gingers, heliconias, ariods, water lilies and lots more. There is always something nice and exciting to purchase there.

Cheers
Sean

Well if it only takes a few hours to get done. I will be very happy. I had visions that it might take days and I do not have that much time to wait around government offices. When I get back I will let you guys know how it went.Thanks Cindy

Oh, wow!! No *wonder* you're glad you stopped in! LOL!
Great score!

I'm especially envious of your P. prostrata. I once found a very small piece of this that had 'hitch-hiked' in another plant I bought from an ebay seller. I nursed it along for a year, but when I brought the plant indoors, it succumbed.
That one is really hard to find!

Nan,
they have a once a year orchid sale that's the same way...everything is really inexpensive. Its mostly divisions of species plants, very very few hybrids, and a lot are mounted (already) which is great for me!

Nice!! I love to go to local plant sales, although I can't say that any around here can complete with the tropical selection you found. I have a HUGE basket of P. prostrata and I have found it relatively easy to grow-in fact I have several pots of rooted cuttings I would be more than willing to trade for hoyas. :)

I was able to visit asiatica nursery, near York, PA, for an open house this past weekend and picked up some absolutely lovely hoyas,...

I am envious of you. I really like Asiatica. I have bought several things from them. I'd love to see their place! What did you get?????

Oh, I was bad. I was very *very* lucky and got to actually go inside the greenhouse with the owner (and it's typically closed to the public even during open houses) so I was able to handpick some of the plants and even got a couple in bloom. H. davidcummingii in bloom, onychoides, imperialis 'mosiac', megalaster, a dischidia hybrid, cuttings of another dischidia (they had grown into a pot of one of the hoyas I got, so he said 'they're a bonus, and unidentified') and Philodendron pink queen.
Nice perennials, but we don't have a house here. He was a very nice man and very honest.

I was bad too, I have had my eye on Imperialis Mosaic for months and finally ordered it. It should be here tomorrow

Bihai-I'm trying to figure out how you got such good prices! I've gone to the plant shop and priced (I thought) all the hoyas and you seemed to get them for 1/2 the price! I was happy, very happy with $5 for a 4" pot and $12 for a hanging basket but then you come along and get the same thing for half. I don't get it. And I was there the day of the big sale too.
(they did tell me that a guy in Odessa grows their hoyas although they may do some propagating on site)

You were at the UF Botany Dept sale? In Gainesville? You live here? We must meet!

The plants at the UF sale were all priced between 50 cents and $20. There was NOTHING over $20. This is a fundraiser for them. These are plants that the botany students have grown and propagated, presumably for a grade (who knows?). I got this huge Coelogyne pandurata orchid there for $20...a very good price considering it has 4 pseudobulbs and new growth, and each leaf is over 2 feet long (and this species is not all that commonly sold up here)
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The dog is over knee high and weighs 55 lbs.

We have 2 local independent nurseries here that sell Hoyas (and epiphyllums, Rhipsalis, Cereus, different cultivars of Lipstick plants etc) that come from the same supplier. (there are other nurseries here of course but I only go to these 2) Their prices for hanging baskets vary with the size and species and size of plant...4" to 10", from $11.99 to 29.99. Most fall in the $14.99 range.

They sell "starter" plants of some more common varieties in 4" pots for $2.99-4.99.

The box stores sell the EA plants in baskets ranging from 4" to what they call a #8 but what we have always called a 10". Their prices run $7.99-9.99. Occasionally $11.99. They also sell the smaller EA plants in 4" pots for I think about half that cost...I have never bought the smaller EA starter hoyas, but have bought stuff like a coffee plant, peperomias,crotons, Philodendrons, etc for $2.99-3.99.

I have gotten a few hoyas at the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens sale in years past that range in cost from $8 (from Bob Smoley) to $35 (from Gardinos)

I think it may just be being in the right place at the right time for some things.

another thought...
prices for plants can vary GREATLY between different geographical areas of the country. EVen from the same store or supplier. Pricing can be vastly different for the same thing. It shouldn't be a big difference for me and Laura, as we both live in the same area, but things can be pretty wild elsewhere.

I bought a bamboo palm (Chamaedorea) 2 years ago at a local sale for $7.99 in the 3 gallon comtainer. These palms are extremely cold hardy (to 20 at least) and I had been wanting one for a bit. Now that they have "caught on" nationally and Home Depot is offering them for the whopping price of $69.99!! That is pretty unbelievable to me. Our same local independents have the same palm for $49.99.

Prices for other landscape plants can be off the scale as well. We are very lucky to live close to a local grower who sells all types of different alocasias, colocasias and xanthosomas to our 2 local independent nurseries here. I have purchased things like Alocasia plumbea nigra (aka Metallica) in the past, a big heaping full 3 gallon pot, for about $15. I saw the exact same plant in a nursery in Dallas TX that my sister in law took me to for $39.00.

I myself used to raise different gingers for the local nurseries when I was operating my nursery, and I can tell you, anything you buy at a nursery is marked up 100%. If I sold them a plant for $5, they charged $10.

Unless you go to Home Depot or another box store here, all the orchids are sold by local and regional growers at the independent nurseries on consignment. SO are the bromeliads. We are lucky here to have some great private growers here who sell their stuff on consignment. There is also a local independent food market that sells their things on consignment.

my mistake, bihai. you said UF and i was at usf...duh! that might explain the different pricing.

I MISSED the USF sale, and I was so sad. I had really wanted to go, but my husband was in Washington and my daughter had other things going on. Hopefully I will get there next time.