Ciao Randy - Thank you, getting close to any of these would be great! Ha. That is interesting to know concerning the G. tinctoria alias manicata. I have a fascination for the genus ever since I acquired a species that is somewhat similar, but not as grand (Petasites japonica). Gunnera is definitely much more interesting and I would greatly appreciate seeds and/or a seedling. That Dorstenia hildebrandtii sounds great, I have not even checked out the species as I have only come across a D. foetida in person. I would greatly appreciate a specimen of this as well! Yes, I agree and apologize for the confusion. I grow most of my plants indoors as a result of my residence in NY. The zone rarely plays much importance as the interesting plants are not able to be grown outdoors. :( The good news is that in July I will be permanently moving to LA and most of my plants will be able to stay outdoors finally in the superb CA sun. I will email you with my details and check out your advice. Thanks for the help. Zach

So I have a huge database I've created of 36 different species and over 300 pictures in my city that I am trying to sell to the tree nurseries in town. It includes lots of the types they sell and it shows how big they get in our city, their fall color and proof for those that don't believe that sugar maples or any other variety grows here. I know for a fact that people will buy the tree they want, the second that they see another picture of one in the city that is mature and beautiful. Seems as hard as pulling teeth to sell this thing though so far. None of them seem to care for a tool that all of their employees could carry around with an ipad. Not to mention, none of their employees know enough about trees. I'm just trying to give them an edge to sell more varieties of trees. What do you guys think? Does a picture sell a thousand trees? Lol Biggest deal is I'm trying to help them sell trees that people are skeptical about their hardiness, which is alot of varieties around here. And take away from the fact that alot of people get no attention in the nursery when the employees are attempting to explain in their best words what the trees might look like later in life.....which of course most of them never even know. And because of climate is very unique, typically trees max out at shorter heights than those little cards that come with the trees. And fall color is different than other places.

I bought all my manzanitas as 1 gallon pots from Pete at East Bay Wilds. My Dr. Hurd is just about 5 ft after 5 years. It can get to be 15ft if it is happy. I hope it gets to be at least 8 ft. Everything was installed at once in the Fall of 2013. Regarding the desert willow, I have Timeless Beauty in my yard. It is on the smaller side - up to 15 ft. It doesn't reseed and seems to grow on the slower side. I guess it just depends on what your needs are in terms of a tree/shrub. I am making a note of your CA native grass resource. I have a few non-native grasses that I need to replace - thanks! If you ever want someone to come give you some advice on your yard, I can certainly drop by. I am not a design/professional architect, I am just passionate about native plants and will give any feedback for free. I can certainly tell you if you have a Toyon in your yard :)

Sorry for the late reply to your query Joe. I haven't been on the forum much over winter, busy with other things. I did go up to the Summerland Ornamental Gardens yesterday to do a quick check on the roses. We had a very difficult winter with a warm November and December, and in early January a sudden flash freeze with temperatures as low as -27 C for a week or so. It is still late winter here and the soil is yet frozen to a degree. Summerland is rated as zone 6b, but we had 5a temeratures with strong arctic catabatic winds and wind chill during the cold snap. So, on to the roses. Most of them will be going into their 3rd growing season this summer, and so are still immature plants. I am happy to report that all of them survived. Many have quite a bit of cane damage, but they all have live cane close to the ground and some have swelling buds already. The collection at the Gardens consists of the following: Marianne, Gallicandy, Oshun, Jerry Jennings and Treasure Trail. We also have Allegra, Janet Inada, Mel's Heritage and Won Fang Yon in the greenhouse at Fraser Valley Rose Farm in Deroche. I will continue to look for viable opportunities to acquire more varieties if feasible, but won't be actively seeking them out. We imported six cuttings of each, along with many more early Austin varieties and a few other hard to find varieties last spring. Jason stuck the cuttings and has been growing them on over winter. I have not spoken with Jason for a month or so, but he is doing an inventory and I will know in a few weeks what took. As well as putting Paul's Plants into the collection at Summerland, Jason will be growing Barden varieties as well and will no doubt have some for sale in Canada in a few years. We too will propagate from the plants in the Summerland collection when the mother plants are mature enough. We will sell our resulting plants at our spring plant sale and our annual Rose Tour held in June. The proceeds will go to help support the Ornamental Gardens. So by my count, we have nine of Paul's varieties in the two Canadian collections. They should be secure for a long time in our Public Garden, which is now 110 years old. We of course were unable to get all of the varieties that we might have liked, but we did pretty well in my books. Because the whole idea of the project was to secure and currate some of Paul's varieties in a safe place, I guess we have a success. An additional intent was to allow us to propagate and share these lovely plants with others. Jason will be able to do that better than we can at the Gardens in the next few years and may in fact eventually begin shipping to the US as his new nursery grows. But again, that will be a few years down the road. Even propagating plants for sale here in Canada is still a year or two away. But then this project started in 2019 and we are now entering year six, but we are on the road to reaching our long term goals. I know many on the forums are familiar with Jason through his You Tube Videos and website. he is young, energetic and a cutting edge nurseryman and Rosarian who shares my passion for preserving rare, garden worthy varieties. For those of you in Canada, check out his website and support him if you can.