Hi Jim, Thank you for the detailed account of these two sweet plants. I have been to a talk about what triggers blooming, and it is mostly photo-periods. For some tropical plants and bulbs it could be the onset of dry season or wet season. One consensus is that there seems to be no "blooming hormone" so to speak, and a plant will bloom when it is mature and well-nourished. Since your fiddlewood is healthy and mature, maybe you can adjust your watering schedule to simulate habitat rain pattern. Many plants do bloom better when they are stressed a little bit. I am growing quite a few plants that are not hardy in my area. One Artabotrys is already over 6' tall and I wonder if I will be able to see my Cananga odorata seedling bloom before it gets too tall. I guess we just have to accept that these plants will only provide a shorter than normal period of enjoyment out of its native range, but certain plants can last quite some time. For example, I saw many Osmanthus fragrans f. aurantiacus in half-barrel containers with 4"-diameter trunks in gardens in Beijing. They must be at least 20 years old and they bloom reliably at very manageable sizes.

solstice98 and others: Here is another great web site- you can get a list of native species for any Florida county- just click on your county from the map: http://www.fnps.org/pages/plants/landscape_plants.php I will post this on the Florida Gardening site so it does not get lost here from the rest of the Florida gardeners. I just moved here recently and have been trying to transform the exotic garden I moved into to mostly native- so far I've been able to attract Green Anoles, Monarch Butterflies, and Zebra Longwing Butterflies- and I live in Miami!

hi, i can't help you with the plants, but here's a link from the Wild Ones website with local links to regional native plant organizations. hope this helps! Here is a link that might be useful: Wild Ones Links

Those old botanists were not exactly politically correct. The first Greek noun referenced in that epithet ("cyn-") has an even more unsavory aspect: it flowed into English many, many years ago in a form I will NOT wirte ANYwhere that is the most derogatory appellation for a female (human) that I know of ....