Mike, I found a great article that pretty much answers all of your questions for you. So instead of me just repeating it I will let you read it. As far as why there isnt a bunch of large scale hybridizers in the US I could only speculate but have no particular reason. Maybe it isnt a viable market to get into with such large competition overseas already operating on a small margin. Maybe its because, as with many domestic products, our political climate is not friendly to the small business and therefore makes it impossible to get going. I also speculate that we may not see a large amount of american hybridizers because for the most part people by "junk" plants. Im talking about the average homeowner that shops at home depot on saturdays. This consumer, which most in this country are, thinks there are only two types of hostas, green and variegated. They think that daylilys are either yellow or orange. For all they know, hippis only come in red and would never bother to search out more than what they can get at the checkout line, not to mention pay 15 dollars a bulb! True gardeners and collectors as we are understand there is an infinite amount of genetics from which an infinite amount of hybrids can be created. It is our job to educate those who dont know the beauty of a plant they havent seen at Lowes or Home Depot. We must go boldly and teach others there is more than flats of petunias in the spring and 4inch mums in the fall! There is a world of color, a world of form and a world of variety for the hungry eye to behold, and it is our duty to share this with the rest of our planet! Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been my pleasure. Goodnight and Farewell. HA im crazy, but seriously I meant what I said. Heres that link by the way, enjoy! Adios! Jason Here is a link that might be useful: All about patents and tradmarks

Absolutley ! Mine have been in and out for the past 3 weeks, way before my Magnolia opened up and it is still just starting to. It was 38 degrees last night which tells you that I still get very cold temps. I would put your tree out at day, and bring it in at night if you know temps are going to be below the 50's at night, until you get your tree acclimated to the outdoors for the next couple of weeks. I would wash all those leaves off, take no chances, since no one can ever be sure you do not have mites excpet you yourself, unless you examine the leaves as I suggested and even then you could miss them. But to me, that is a classic sign of mite damage since I am very familiar with these critters and how they affect my trees, just like yours. Your leaves also look speckled which is another sign. This is what I have learned from my trees over the years. Too much water being held in the soil causes leaves to YELLOW, first symptom, and then drop. It seems to me you are loosing green leaves, no? You can loose green leaves that easily fall taht are fully green and hydrated, NOT DEHYDRATED from the leaf sten, where it meets with leaf and or with the trunk, if your leaves suffered a shock from a lack of water beyond wilt. If the leaves to your tree are slowly loosing firmness, to the point when you bend them and they do not snap, then your roots are not taking up moisture over time and sometimes they will be hard to pull off of trunk. This is due to the inability of your tree to take up moisture either from poor temps, salts in your mix, extremely poor soil, rotted roots and so on. Sucking pests can also cause render citrus leaves not rigid. Poor root function can cause leaf distortion as can pests, extreme change in enviroment, too much fertilizer, too much of a certain nutrient and not enough, ect.. My first form of action would be to put it outside, check for pest and treat as if you have them if you can't, and look at the root zone as suggested my Silica. Good luck and please don't wait..:-) If your branches and trunk are still green, then you have a great chance of keeping those trees alive if you try some of our suggestions here. I have a tree that has been bare since last fall, but still fully alive. Mike

I have two Rhapidophyllum Hystrix and a Sabal Minor McCurtain thriving in Long Branch, NJ just a block and one half off the beach. One needle palm is almost six foot tall. The needle palms are in a small alcove and the McCurtain is out in the open. The latter survived a six foot snow drift on top it during its second winter. None of the Palms have ever been protected by blankets or mulch. All three have a Southern Exposure. There is a large hedge to the west of the McCurtain protecting it from Northwest winds. They were all planted in Spring. The former in 1999 and the latter in 2002. All of my specimens came from Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, NC. They have a lot of experience dealing with cold hardy palms. www.plantdelights.com. The fact they were raised in the middle of North Carolina and not in Florida has a lot to say about their cold hardiness. This year, I hope to plant Trachycarpus Takil (Wagner variety) and the Tennessee Form. Also Sabal Minor Louisiana. They are currently wintering in a cold frame since I got them too late last year to plant them in the ground. Planting in the fall would be a disaster. In the late 70's through to about 1987 I had Needle Palm growing in Hopewell Township NJ near Pennington (north of Trenton). They laughed at temperatures below minus five. They were on the south side of the house. I saw the pictures of the Palms growing in Willingboro. Why are they so close to the wall? These things get big, hopefully, and they can possibly and regrettably damage the wall. The power of trees growing is enormous. They can crack sidewalks and damage the foundations of houses.

We really are talking about two different creatures...general garden center vs specialty hosta grower. I agree with most of the comments about general nurseries. Most are boring and uninspiring. I rarely buy much from them, and even less likely to buy a hosta there. General nurseries usually buy in bareroot field grown stock or larger plugs, because growing TC liners to a retail size takes at least one full season. They can make more money growing 2-3 fast crops in a season with their space. And therein lies the issue of price...hostas are a relatively slow crop to produce. The longer it takes to grow a plant, the more it's going to cost. Never mind there is soooo much more cost in producing a plant, than the cost of the plant itself. Then factor in the hours spent hybridizing, collecting, cleaning, and growing seeds...and (ideally) years of evaluation...that's a whole lot of time and effort invested in a finished product that the consumer wants to pay less and less for every year. The box store growers make very low margins on large volume. Specialty growers just can not survive doing that. Expecting a specialty grower to conform to mass market prices is guaranteed death for the specialty grower. In the hosta world, it is these small, specialty growers that develop and bring to market the new, cool plants that you all keep saying you want. They need your support...and waiting for the end of the season sale is too late! moccasinlanding, in the past few years Q&Z has been introducing some of Van's plants. I can't say for sure, but I suspect Mark asked if he could put some of Van's plants into TC. From there, Q&Z sells the liners to hosta growers across the country and around the world. As for volume...not sure what an average run was for them...maybe 1000+....maybe much more. I do know some varieties are difficult to produce and were very limited (streakers, for example). Most TC contracts (a plant TCed exclusively for a retail grower) are probably around 200-500 plants. Here again, the larger quantity the lab produces, the cheaper the liners are. Most specialty growers can not sell through so many plants in a reasonable time frame. It seams the general perception the consumer has is that the specialty growers are filling their bank account from crazy margins we charge. Fact is, many growers are barely scraping by. By the way, Tony Avent shared his opinion and condolences on Q&Z in the September Plant Delights newsletter.