Alison, There are closer places to Columbus than Oxford and Dan Bachman's. I've not been to the one at Oxford, but Dan's a friend. There is Yost's in Pataskala, as well as Lynd's at 310 and Morse. Fitzpatrick's in Lithopolis, just SE of Columbus is another great place. check out www.daylilytrader.com for a list of Ohio daylily growers. Lynd's isn't on there (he's not an AHS member either) but you can't miss him if you go to 310 and Morse near Pataskala. He may have a web page if you search for Mitch Lynd and Daylily. Yosts and Fitzpatricks are my favorites in Central Ohio...along with Warrell's, but Warrell's is closed already for the year. You can email Yosts and Fitzpatrick's from the daylilytrader site. You can also go to the AHS site, www.daylilies.org and click on "AHS display Gardens" then on the next page, click on Region 2 (you may have to scroll down to get to this).... up comes a list of daylily gardens whose job it is to have visitors and teach about daylilies..... Fitzpatrick's and Yosts are on there, as well as a lot more - Bachman's, others around Dayton.... Most display gardens also sell their excess divisions. Check it out! Jules

Thank you everyone! If the poster that gave me three of the smaller Plumies would like to ID themselves here, they can, and I give them a big huge THANK YOU! =o) Juicy, I love that buddah belley! I got that over 5 years ago as a very small plant at Ikea of all places. It has to be one of the easiest plants on the planet to take care of, possibly even easier than Chamaedorea Elegans (parlor palm). Thank you Laura! If you are ever up this way during the warm months you are welcome to stop by and have a "cold one" on me under neath the palms and tropicals. =o) We STILL have not gotten down there yet, but we are still planning on coming at some point, hopefully before winter sets in. I'll keep you posted. MerryMike, I lift them all myself. They come inside and most go into the sunroom. It does get crowded in there, but it is worth it to me. Our sunroom used to be a porch that was built out so its all windows, faces south, and has the original hard wood porch floor. It is raised off the ground so under neath the porch is "open air" which makes the sun room cool down at night in cold weather to the upper 50s or so if we close the french doors to it, and it really heats up during the day. It gets full sun, ALL DAY, and is extremely bright. Dpolson37, were you the one that stopped by my place (old place) back in like 2007 and dropped off two Plumie cuttings to me? If so, back then I did not have the space I did now. One of them I rooted and gave away, the other one got damaged by a storm, wind, falling tree branches, then HAIL of all things. It ended up not surviving all that trauma. =o( Roper2008, the BIG palm is a Phoenix Roebelenii. That will come inside and go in the sunroom as it is not hardy here. It is about 6-7 feet tall at its leaf tips so it easily fits inside. Its BIG, but that palm is my pride and joy. Fortunately those to not gain height very fast, and also are very happy in rather small pots. The reason it looks so "tall" is because its got an extra 2+ feet on it because it is sitting on a table. The only palms that will stay out are the in ground Sabal Minor out front on the south side of the house, and the windmill in the pot. I do wrap the pot, and use either xmas lights or a heating cable around the pot itself to keep it from freezing. The sago palms stay out until night time temps go down to around 27 or lower. The banana to the left with the single white chair next to it is a Rojo "blood leaf" or "blood" banana. I have it since it was about 1' tall and for almost 3 years now. This is its third summer out, and it is putting up lots of pups, especially since he got a bigger pot this summer. Only two of the Bananas come in, the others are Basjoo and will go in the ground to overwinter, OR just get cold stored dormant in the basement. Thank you everyone for all the kind words and for looking! It's not the best but its what I can do given what I have. If I actually owned the house, it would look ALOT different, with many things actually in the ground.

Bahia is right. Most of them are going to be terribly difficult on the East Coast. I've tried and the seedlings, at least, tend to die on the first hot and humid day. I think this is what would happen, eventually, with most of the protea plants if one could actually obtain them. (and yes, the conservatory at Longwood Gardens that grows rare subtropical plants from mild climates is air conditioned! A luxury I daresay most of us could not afford. Since he knew the name of the designer, can we assume he was being cheeky by calling it the "big estate garden outside Philadelphia"? Haha...good one. The next time I need to mention Kew I'm going to call it "the big botanical garden in SW London.") An option is to try to find Protea species that SHOULD be more tolerant. Unfortunately, they are quite rare, as they would not grow easily in California, and Florida is just too hot for them. The distribution map of Protea caffra seems to place it in parts of Eastern South Africa and Mozambique, Zimbabwe, etc. that might get somewhat hot and humid. Protea simplex is a dwarf relative of it. The problem with the montane Drakensberg species is, sure, they like summer rain (unlike the proteas grown in California, which are winter growers), but in fact that climate often has cool dry air that is briefly punctuated by storms, rather than our constant steam bath. Another option is to do what he said, just root some of the leftovers from your flower biz., and try them in containers. Because of some random spin of the genetic dice, there's no telling whether CERTAIN Cape species (the kind grown in Cali.) might be able to in fact, tolerate our weather. (of course, talking about summer weather here, they are going to need to be kept in a greenhouse in the winter) Keep in mind this happens all the time, just to less of a degree. The Himalayan Rhododendrons grown, say, on the West Coast of England, aren't really happy with the winters being so wet compared to their homeland, but they can manage it. The plants that absolutely won't take a climate different from their local one are the exception, not the rule. Why don't western Blue Brodiaea bulbs rot in our wet eastern summers? I don't know, but they don't. It's just that you are asking a lot for these proteas to survive quite a different regime from their native environment, and proteas being the strange group that they are, have adaptability issues, period. Like not being able to handle phosphorus fertilizer.

Hazel, I am following the progress of your protea seeds with great interest. They are fascinating plants. When did you plant them? You sound as though you have been very careful in looking for signs of growth, so I'm sure no harm was done....I have a tendancy to do the same with seeds!! D/D No2 is off to South Africa in Oct to visit boyfriends family, hopefully she can bring some packets of seeds back for me to experiment with. Had email back from DEFRA with info on what is and isn't allowed into UK, so will print it off to take with her... she doesn't know yet! Ha! Did you go to the Gardeners World do at the NEC this year? Almost got tickets ourselves, glad we didnt though with me having the accident, would never have made it. How are your plumies doing? Celadine is so slow in leafing out, but the 4 seedlings are doing well. Keep us posted on the proteas? Regards, Gill.