Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Looking for rex begonias and climbers will trade, 1 by DaleTheGardener

DaleTheGardener wrote:
Most of the unusual gesneriads are what I call 'hobby' plants. Only dedicated indoor growers and botanical garden (greenhouse) people seen to work with them. The cool growing kind find our summers deadly and the warm tolerant kind find our winters too cold. Down in the Miami area they have better luck. I know Palm Hammock Orchid Estates http://members.tripod.com/~PalmHammockOrchidEst/phoe.html have a few of the tropical kinds. Best bet would be the Gesneriad Society, everytime I have sent them an email I have gotten a good response and those people really network!

Here is a person in Brazil that carries many different seeds (no plants). http://mpeixoto.sites.uol.com.br/Seeds.html I have done business with him and he has a incredible selection of gesneriads. I have had a hard time finding info on some of his seeds, but, he provides lots of good information on his site and is more than happy to answer email questions.

We don't have much of a greenhouse industry around here. Most of the plants we have are for the garden and that limits what is available. Folks in FL don't have much interest in expanding the plant palette, they are happy with whatever is easily available, except a few of us mad scientist types.