Jon's a very sharp guy with wide horticultural interests who is also doing some breeding work in other areas, and I expect we'll see a lot of interesting plants coming out of his programs. Last winter, and actually at least the last 5 winters here, have not been nearly as harsh, as far as just how cold it got, as what we saw in the previous 20-odd years (the limit of my experience in the area). We used to routinely see winter lows in the -18 to -23 C range (0 to -10 F), with odd -28 C (-20 F) spikes. The last few years we've seen nothing below 0 F, and not much below 10 F (-12 C). At least one USDA zone warmer, in terms of what's surviving outdoors without protection, than "normal", whatever that means. There is a guy locally who grows tuberoses for cut flower sales at the farmer's market, but as of 2-3 years ago, he was not leaving them in the ground over winter. (As an aside, he was using a machine normally used somehow by the local grape growers to dig the tubers each fall.) Something else to ask next spring. I've never tried any polianthes outdoors here, just assuming they wouldn't make it, but maybe I should rethink that. Steve On Sat, 2 Dec 2006, Lee Poulsen wrote: > On Dec 2, 2006, at 1:06 PM, James Waddick wrote: > > > > The author of the article on the hybrids suggests that these > > crosses have been made before. Anyone grow any of these or are they > > available commercially ? > > Since the author, Jon Lindstrom's, email address was in the article I > thought I'd send a quick note asking him about this. He just answered > and said that the hybrid pictured is currently in tissue culture and > he plans on releasing it in the near future once he has a better > sense of its winter hardiness. It survived one winter in > Fayetteville, Ark., but he says that last winter wasn't a real test. > > He also attached a photo of a number of the blossoms from the results > of a cross between Manfreda maculosa x Polianthes geminiflora. Some > look like larger flared open P. tuberosa blossoms in various shades > of orange to orange-red. A few looked like smaller than average > Manfreda blossoms but with either a very light orangey-white color or > a medium orange color. Very nice looking. He says some of those > hybrids are in tissue culture as well. -- Steve Marak -- samarak@gizmoworks.com