Y'know, something like that would be very useful if it were accurate, Paul. I can't remember which of the talks at the Extravaganza covered the relationships and relative place on the evolutionary scale of the various subfamilies and genera-- I think it was Theresa Bert's, do you remember, Bob? Anyway, it was hard to follow all of the details, and a chart hand-out would have been helpful. This one has members of different subfamilies on the same branch, though! That ain't right.......

Hi, Wendy, I don't know where you are in Oz, but I can relate to the dryness. I lived in the Coffs Harbour (mid north coast of NSW) area amongst others for some time. There, with it not raining significantly for over a year, I watered some young gumtrees every few days. They grew well. Incredibly so in some cases. Then a year later, a storm blew a couple of them over. Most of the roots were surface - my regular watering had encouraged that. So I would strongly recommend that you don't water your transplanted frangi "a little every day" but give the ground it's in a major soaking, then mulch (if you haven't already) and leave it for some time. Repeat only with major soakings, but not very often. The growth that you're getting now is of what was there ready to be put out. It needs to re-establish the fine roots, grow some more and "settle in"! Don't worry about it. Give it time and a lot of love! They can cope with a lot. Once I pulled up a cutting, left it sitting against a rock, and it still flowered! Oh that it were so easy here in Cornwall! :-)))

Yep, definitely fruit fly. But I don't buy the fatalistic line espoused above. I have huge delicious tomatoes coming in hand over fist. A few are in this thread... http://www.au.gardenweb.com/forums/load/cornucop/msg0201302810487.html?5 Last year was shocking for fruit fly. This year I started with a few but there are bugger all now. Len makes a very salient point. Husbandry. You have to start by removing all spent fruit from your property and never ever putting fruit in the compost pile. I spray at first light with concentrated pyrethrum 20ml/ltr, which is organic, and try and get spray under the green collar (forgotten the name) at the top of the fruit, where the blighters will attack if pyrethrum is covering the rest of the fruit. I appear to have erradicated a very severe problem in the space of 12 months. I am awash with tomatoes of all shapes, colours and sizes. In fact, this is going down as one of my best tomato seasons ever in Sydney. Extra-large fruit this year. Even golf-ball sized ones aremore like tennis balls. If you have fruit trees on your property you might have your work cut out. But don't give up on growing tomatoes in Sydney or anywhere else for that matter. I beat my other big problem - birds - by collecting all the spare caps I could and attaching the velcro tabs around the tomato stems so the cap or two facing caps cover the ripening tomatoes. Works like a charm. And your plants look like they are enjoying major sponsorship ;) Start on your fruit fly problem now for next season. It won't happpen overnight but it will happen. And make sure you get your plants in the ground in early Autumn so they set fruit before the height of summer, which fries the flowers. But even then I have had excellent fruitset through summer by shaking branches on the sub-30C days and feeding with a bloom booster so there are always flowers ready to open after those that have been fried on the hot days. Good growing, Grub. And feel free to email me for some seeds for great varieties that can handle a bit of heat :)

Hi Verandah, Greathawks and brissi555......I just happened to check the Australian Forum for tropical plants, is anyone still cultivate Plumerias/Frangipani ? I was actually in Brisbane for a month, visiting one of my sister and her families, she lives in the area of Chermside! Did any of you buy Plumerias at one of your local nurseries or from a website ? I'll be curious to know because I have 10 of them, here in the San Francisco peninsula. Well...good to know you....maybe you can check the GardenWeb Forums/Plumeria !! Hopefully I will find you in the near future, Annamaria