Great advice to go for the ones you can't get elsewhere. This is also what I always do. What I recommend be on your list is 1. lucardenasiana. Not only is it very easy to root, but it grows generously right off the bat and your cutting will look JUST as beautiful as the picture in his catalog. This is probably the most pleased I've been with any plant I've purchased from TG. So that's $20. Next, I'd put on 2. erythrina. This was on my first order to TG when I was still figuring things out and it still rooted easily. It is an extremely beautiful plant and, oddly, made prettier by the typical TG outdoor scarring. If you already have erythrina, then I'd go for cv. Christine or latifolia (I really love my var. concolor and you feel like you're getting your money's worth with a sturdy giant thing like this ^_~) or odettea (also roots easily and is very cute). So that's $10. For the remaining $5, I'd choose either bilobata, or montana! These are both cute plants that everyone should have. I should say at this point that an equally recommended route would be to go for megalantha for $30 straight up. I did not find this one difficult to root and it is difficult to get elsewhere. It grows quite well, too, if you keep it cool and humid. Make sure you get the one collected on Taveuni. It is more difficult to root according to the Swedes, but it's worth it! ========== Now, if it were me, (which I believe was the real question?) what I would be ordering is: 1. sp. Mindanao OR ilagiarum OR kloppenburgii 2. soligamiana OR sp. Germany OR D. rosea 3. D. acutifolia ... I didn't even have to look, because I made a list the other night. I just can't narrow it down. ^_^

Nicole, obviously you aren't experiencing any problems. That's good but many of us are. Just read the postings. Did you read my original post on this thread? I spent a long time yesterday trying to share my experiences with the new baby birds coming to the feeders. I kept making corrections when words and letters were being deleted. I really worked at trying to post because I so enjoyed the birds. Then, my whole post just went blank before I could even post it. Also I'm seeing first and last names of some forum members. I really don't think they are meaning to have that public. I emailed Houzz but apparently they arent concerned about security. As far as the format, that's not a problem for me. I have had 10 days to get used to it. Most people are only experiencing the changes as of today.

Cran, I am sorry to hear you have lupus. I hope yours is in remission. Mine presently is and it makes such a difference! I had a very long remission, 27 years until my stroke. For years I needed only survalance after initially, at 23, needing prednisone for kidney issues. Insoluble fiber acts just like resistance starch. So, I saw Dr. Kreigel' team at Yale but he recently left to work with Roche to develop possible treatment or vaccine for lupus so now I see a colleague of his. It is very hard to alter our flora but studies of high fiber diets and lower sugar were proven to work for matabolic syndrome, i.e. Type 2 diabetes, so it was suggested I beef up my fiber intake to atleast 20 grams a day. I eat two cups of all bran with unsweetened rice milk every day and have a bowl of steel cut oats for an afternoon snack to hit almost 30 grams of fiber. The rest of my diet is normal fruit, fish, veggies, yogurt, some treats, potatoes and pasta so the bran and oats are the change I made. Resistance starch is in pasta and potatoes and many other foods. Pasta and potatoes cooled after cooking are supposedly higher in resistance starch than heated is. Yams are a good source. I like to use food sources more than supplements. High fiber, low fat and sugar diets are proven to help maintain health and diverse gut bacteria. Fiber, (resistance starches) are considered prebiotics which feed the good bacteria while sugar and fat feed the unhealthier ones. Also have your vitamin d regularly checked. Insufficiency is linked to higher lupus and Antiphospholipid antibodies and thus flares. I now supplement for mine was low. xo

I never read the original thread in September. Maybe I was banned in that period. We've been watching a lot of Netflix in the last few weeks since TV programming is all reruns. We watched both seasons of The Crown which we loved and both seasons of the Kominsky Method. Also loved it, but tonight we were looking for an hour-long show before bed. So I remembered the recent mention of this here and we watched it. I liked it a lot and can't wait to watch all eight episodes. Great acting. I'll have to google this and find out details.