I bought some T&M seeds just for the fun of it, and followed the instructions: Pluck off the orange fluff, put in moist sand, and put in absolute darkness in warmth. I had six out of eight seeds germinate, starting about a month afterwards, and going on to about three months. Plumeria gets quite large, up to about ten metres (30ft) or so, if I remember correctly, but can be kept smaller in pots. They take at about four years or so to start flowering, from what I've read. They are easy to germinate, though. I just stuffed the seeds upright, half-buried (just the seed part, not including the wing), into the soil, wing-side up, and they germinated in a few weeks. Be very careful, though, the stems of the seedlings are extremely fragile, I've found. A bit of shear pressure on them, and they snap easily. Pecans, I have no experience with. Palms, I haven't germinated, but I had some seeds someone gave me, and he said you just put it in some moist soil and wait for a couple of weeks, and they'll germinate. Good luck!

While this minutiae is still being discussed I might as well pick a bone with the opening statement: "I live in zone 9 in southern Brazil (equivalent to northern Florida or southern Georgia)" Generally not the case. If that were true, I would have moved to northern Florida a long time ago. If you go high enough to be USDA zone 9 in Brazil - because of the various factors I bring up repeatedly and will tediously rehash now, the cool ocean currents off the coast, the higher adiabatic lapse rate compared to the northern hemisphere, the prevailing high pressure patterns etc., summers in that zn 9 are NOTHING like those in north Florida. Here are Curitiba's stats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curitiba max 78F/61F in summer A measly 3000 ft. of elevation, and the summers are almost as cool as SE England's. And it is probably closer to zn 10 all the same. You would have be north of Boston to have summers like that on the US East coast. I don't think it would be Picea pungens, but I have NO doubt you could find a very similar looking blue Picea from high-elevation cloud forest areas of Mexico that would be happy as a clam in zn 9 Brazil. Even Sao Paolo is zn 11 (!), and has very mild summers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A3o_Paulo

I have found 9-pound bags of a mix of mostly millet with some sunflower seed and, I think, safflower seed, at a dollar-type store here called Big Lots. $7 per bag. Birds gobble it up in winter, but in the winter they'll eat anything; in the spring they are picky, kicking out the milo for the pigeons and doves, so I stop feeding them and concentrate on hummingbirds and, this year, suet for Ladderback and Downy woodpeckers. Also I have nyger thistle feeders (both metal mesh feeder and sock feeder) out for our sweet, tiny lesser goldfinches. To complete my first post in this forum, I spotted and got pictures of a male Northern Cardinal this morning, a rare sighting for our area (Albuquerque). A similar male bird (the same one??) was reported a few miles further north back in February. I also photographed a rare Vermillion Flycatcher in April. Maybe more birds are moving into my state -- and I'll have figure out how to feed them if they visit my apartment complex :)

Thanks, Oldned, that is what it is! The pics were taken close to a small lake in Nanjing, China by a colleague in January. I stand corrected - it is not in the Southern part but is in the Eastern part of China.