Hey all, And as for me, I love seeing all of the enthusiasm on this forum these days for what we all know is the planet's premier flower! There are so many threads that I can't seem to get to them all--it's great to see. Andrew: you're welcome! Anytime--enjoy Florida when you get down here. The rain has disappeared recently so maybe you'll have sunshine. Wendy: I'm so glad the suggestion has helped. Your Thai Splash and noID are both gorgeous! (And no worries about the multiple pics...I have been guilty of the same LOL it's just hard not to get excited, I understand completely!) Jen: thanks for noting my question regarding Cal Sun. I hope YOU had a great trip to Cali yourself--how neat that you got to go to JJ's...although I'm flabbergasted that you left with nothing?!?! LOL!!! How is that possible? ;-) I still need to read the PSA thread to hear about what you, K, and the other Texans bought at the sale! Laura: you're so sweet as always! And btw, your latest photo of Apricot is stunning!!! OMG so pretty! My list just got longer, I think LOL Also, welcome to all the newcomers. I have another new photo to share, of Divine. Such a fab plumie! I can't get over the depth of color this year. Greg

No-Clue, Thanks, I've been into plumerias for about 6 years now. Learned a lot and still have lots to learn. Thinking back I started with one cutting from Hawaii in regular Miracle Grow potting soil. It grew very well and flowered the first year. Sometimes I think ignorance is bliss because I now baby these trees and might get blooms. I keep playing with different soil mixes and have not arrived at the optimum yet. My plumeria collection has doubled this year which is insane, but I can't seem to stop. Guess this just takes on a life of it's own. For every beautiful photo posted here I want yet another. I daydream of owning a piece of land in a warm place that I can just plant and come visit once in a while. Would probably kill me knowing I have such a place and not being there all the time. I am starting to populate Aruba with cuttings though. Every year I plant another one that I find being thrown away as the resorts tidy up. Can't wait to see how the one I planted last year has grown. Have fun planning your garden. Post photos as I'm sure it will evolve. Big Wave Dave

Well, it it’s been a while since I posted here. Here’s the effect of heavy snow on three of my established live oaks in northern Virginia back in Jan. 2022. Had to take them all out. It’s not the cold, BUT THE SNOW LOADS that limit their success here. I still have my oldest live oak (30’ high). For some reason it was not damaged. Maybe because it was less out in the open. And branches could rest on other trees.

Oh Lord, how did this thread get bumped? Having had a fairly large A. concolor in my yard that ended up a dead fir...especially trying were the summers of 2010, 2011 and 2012...I want to post what Sam said with new emphasis and comments: I want to make the case for White Fir in eastern US. I agree with Donald Wyman "One of the best of the firs for planting in northern gardens and thoroughly reliable as far north as Boston. It is noted for withstanding heat and drought better than most of the other firs." which isn't the only thing they will potentially need to withstand. No, they are not the utterly craptastic, guaranteed failures that Picea pungens are, but I think DC is probably just about the very southern limit in the Piedmont...so let's be careful about saying "eastern US". I have seen good looking ones in SE PA and suburban Baltimore, but also some that appeared to be declining. They seem most consistent in NYC metro area and points north (or east). The incredibly heavy Hurricane Irene rains of 2011 was probably the turning point for mine, while Abies firmas laughed it off. A monthly 20+ inches of rain into a loamy clay soil is not something they encounter in their native habitat, to be sure. If I wanted to have one in my zn 7 east coast garden, as with ANY other western US fir, I'd rather have it grafted onto firma. (In fact I just bought one like that last year, I forget the cultivar, it's some kind of yellow-in-winter concolor.) While I'm talking rare firs, the last of my UNgrafted Abies delavayi died, proving the climate here is just a bridge too far. It took over 5 years for 3 to die though. I have no doubt they would be OK if grafted; there's a guy down in NC who has a grafted-on-firma A. spectabilis. And about the hollies mentioned above, 'Scepter' is now fully established and I think will take anything winter will throw at it, as is the case of the yellow berried aquifolium. As for the theory James G Esson could be a cross with a native American holly seemingly proposed by embo, now actually having such a cross in my garden, I can say it is absolutely clear it is not. If there is anything else in there, it's another Eurasian holly. This based on bloom time and appearance. James G. Esson blooms with the other aquifolium clade hollies, well before the American ones. The hybrid blooms between them and in fact it's going to be interesting to see if it gets enough pollination to produce a good crop of berries. Might be why the hybridizer never released it. The male hybridizer I bought in the picture above finally bloomed well this year, producing a crop of berries on James G. Esson. I had no other male aquifoliums and of course they being rareish garden plants around here, there was nothing else to pollinate it. (they will grow here, a couple english hollies have gotten the chop in this area in the past decade. Looking too decadently evergreen I guess bwahaha)