Hi! I have Beefsteak Tomatoes, Straight Eight Cucumbers, Scarlet Nantes Carrots, Kentucky Wonder Beans, & Cherry Belle Radishes seeds! Packed for the 2012 Growing season! I would love some of both your seeds! Please let me know! Thanks, Mark

Hi, The best flower green Clivia is probaly "Hirao Green" out of Japan. He sells blooming size plants for $2000 (yes 3 zeroes!). A couple seeds recently sold for $50+ each for a cross between HG and a very nice green throat yellow. A friend of mine has a Hirao and has been very generous to share some with our local group. I hope to do a lot more with it in the coming year if she is able to provide more. The down side is Hirao is from a type 2 yellow. Most of the American yellows, as well as those out of South Africa, are group 1. This results in an orange with green or "bronze" in the first generation then a yellow with some to significnat amount of green in the second generation (10 years!) I do have 3 blooming size group 2 yellows which will hopefully bloom. I also wonder what happens when that pollen is put onto an interspecific as well as some of the watercolors. I guess the basic answer is, in perhaps 2-5 years, it should be possible for most people to access seeds from such a cross, but they still won't be cheap. The other well known green is Charl's green. Only a few of those exist. An offset sold for about $5300 ($3500??) last year in South Africa. From what I've heard, it is probably derived/offset/??? from Hirao Green, but I really don't know. There are other greens out there, but many are basically defective immature flowers that are sterile. There is a picture of one on my photobucket gallery under the "other" category. Hirao Green is under "friends" http://s271.photobucket.com/albums/jj154/Heronbayclivias/ Password "Clivias" Feel free to contact me by email. heronbayclivias@prodigy.net . Craig Sacramento, CA

Sorry Nova, but I concur with Dandy. I have a beautiful patch of Smilacina racemosa in the front, which the deer didn't find and munch the flowers off, unlike the plants growing in the back yard, and there was a nice bloom this year. I made a point of sniffing the flowers, and there wasn't the slightest fragrance. I'm not sure what these other folks are talking about, but perhaps there is some genetic variation and some individuals are fragrant? This post was edited by terrene on Fri, Jul 5, 13 at 2:22

Some background on the palm: Palm gracing Solomons conjures a tropical breeze Professor at Chesapeake lab tends exotic visitor Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2006 By Erica Mitrano Staff Writer Solomons isnât a deserted island, but it does sport a lone palm tree. The tropical windmill palm tree has been nurtured on the grounds of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory by Dr. Robert Ulanowicz, a professor there. Ulanowicz has a passion for palms. In fact, it was his fascination with the trees that led him to work at the laboratory in the first place. ââIâm working here at CBL mainly because in â68 or â69 I came to go fishing off the Solomons pierâ and saw a palm tree growing. The tree attracted him to the lab, where he now works as a theoretical ecologist. He studies trophic interactions, which he explains as ââwho eats whom and how much [in food webs]. Boxes and arrows. You can mathematically analyze the interactions,â he said. After the original palm tree at the laboratory died of neglect, Ulanowicz decided to replace it with one of his own. Solomons Island is suited to raising palms because it is surrounded by water and sheltered from winds. Even so, the tree needs special care. Ulanowicz fertilizes it heavily every spring and does what he can to protect it from frosts in winter, including wrapping the trunk of the tree in colder weather. Surprisingly, Ulanowicz also uses snow to protect his tree from the cold. ââSnow is an insulator. ... You pile the snow around it and it will come out fine,â he said. The snow keeps the area at about the 5 degrees Fahrenheit required for the tree to survive. While he is not a plant breeder, Ulanowicz hopes to create a cold-resistant variety of windmill palm better adapted to Maryland conditions. ââI put a number of them out and select the hardiest. ... Iâm not that serious about it. Iâm just playing around with it,â Ulanowicz said. Despite recent concerns about the ecological effects of non-native plant species in Maryland, Ulanowicz is not worried, saying these trees are too poorly adapted to escape into the wild. ââI just donât see it surviving in the wild given its slow rate of growth. Itâll be out-competed by other things,â Ulanowicz said. Ulanowiczâs fascination with the exotic extends beyond palms. His backyard is also packed with exotic flora like pomegranate trees, purple passion flowers, red spider lilies and Japanese apricot trees, among others. ââIâve always liked warm weather,â is Ulanowiczâs simple answer to the question of why he goes to the trouble of raising them here. He has fond memories of time spent in Georgia as a boy and makes frequent trips to Florida. As for why he decided to raise a palm tree, his answer is even simpler. ââBecause it will grow here,â Ulanowicz said. E-mail Erica Mitrano at emitrano@somdnews.com.