I've never been, but I'd love to go, if only to see Butterfly World. We'll expect a full report from you afterwards!

Too bad I usually don't go to FL in Sept or I'd check it out. We go to FL in the winter. BTW I love Butterfly World and go almost everytime I'm there. The gardens (and the butterflies, hummingbirds & lorikeets) are just beautiful and they sell a number of their plants. Problem is we usually fly and plants on a plane isn't a good idea. I don't even know if they're allowed anymore but I have brought some stuff home when we've traveled by car.
Karyn

Jim,
I'm planning on attending. I've talked to Ron Boender, and John MacDougal, among others, and mostly it's an opportunity for passiflora culturists to talk and share ideas and make new passiflora friends. And best of all, Ron lets you take cuttings of the many passifloras there at Butterfly world.
I hope to see you there! (And anyone else who would like to come!)
Ethan

Very interested in this. How much is it an what do you get for the cost?

Chris

Just bumping this back up. Jim, Ethan...3 days and counting. Yippee!

Ethan, you have been to one of thesse before? I just contacted Sarah at BW to ask her a question. Does anyone bring anything other than Passis to trade? I have aristolochia germinated and Plumeria 1-2 year old seedlings
as the local farm is going out of business. Just didn't
know if these are tradable at such an event and if I should bother bringing them.

Flutter

Jim, Ethan...
It was wonderful meeting you at the meeting. I just finished potting up all my cuttings (They have been soaking) and just cleaned out my 2 fruits (Wow they produce a lot of seeds) and thought I would pop in here. I posted a message on DG for role call and picture posting if interested.

Chris "Flutter"

Why don't you folks who went to Florida post recaps for those of us not so fortunate?

Wow! Where have the guys been. Helllllllooooooo? Anyone home yet?

Anyway, I am just a newbie to the society but I can give you the lowdown.
Friday
9:00 lets see, we arrive and everyone started reconnecting names to faces. Wow were there so many "big" names around that it was so awesome to just be around them. Jon Vanderplank, John MacDOugal, and of course Ron Boender as well as a ton of others. Elizabeth was there from Grassy Knolls, Michael Kartuz from Kartuz Greenhouses, and someone (Sorry too many names) from Logees. Several people from Canada, several from BC.
10:00 Anyway, after feeling really like I didn't belong, it was time to go to Airboat ride. Drove with Mark Stratton and we talked "Shop" the whole way there about cutting propogation, seed propogation and all. Airboat was cool. 12:00 then back to BW for lunch.
1:00 Then most of the group headed off to Boynton Botanicals but hubby, Mark, and several others stayed at BW to wander.
3:45 Everyone came back, everyone scattered around to buy the last of the plants before BW closed. BW set up small seedlings, plants, and baggies of seeds for sale and reasonable costs
5:00 Everyone headed to hotel to relax for the night

Saturday
8:00 Board member meeting
9:00 breakfast at BW
9:30 Tour of BW Passiflora collection and then a tour of behind the scenes. (Seed germination rooms, research gardens, special hybrids, etc...) This was an awesome tour!!
12:00 Lunch on site (Many people starting draggin out all their shares..seeds and cuttings galore so lunch was put on hold)
1:00 Group Photo of at least 40 of us
1:30 Slide show presentations by the best and funniest of them all...Ron Boender, John Vanderplank, Kartuz, and a young lady that traveledd all around China, Australia and other places searching for long lost species. She was awesome and I can't wait to get minutes of the meeting or the next newsletter to read more about her work.
2:30 or so..time to get our cuttings. Ron Boender walked us all around BW thru their collection and just started offering up cuttings. Going plant to plant, Ron would cut and hand. Funny sight with all of us running around with garbage bags and ziplocks.

Personally I left with 31 cuttings of 12 different species, 10 rooted plants, 300 seeds of 2 different species, and 1 plant I bought..all for $6.95 :)

I know the guys got a much different collection but I got so much out of this get together (even if it was just spying in on conversations :)

Can't wait till the next one

Flutter

Geez sounds like you all had a great time! Maybe I should join the passie society too lol. I think I saw your post on DGs passiflora forum (yeah! there is a passie forum on DG!)

Okay,
Sorry about the negligence to check back on this message. I am in agreement with Flutter (I'm trying to put your real name with your online name. I know we met; their wasn't that many of us for me not to.) It was fun to meet people whose books I've read and so forth, and to put faces with names. Butterfly World was cool, and my only regret is that I didn't have time to explore it!
The greatest thing is that everyone was very friendly and it was great to make new friends.
I took loads of cuttings and sadly I've killed a lot of them. Please let me know what you have survive, Flutter, as maybe I can arrange a trade. I bought two plants at BW, and maddeningly both are dead or nearly dead: a p. glandulosa and p. nelsonii. Both dropped all of their leaves and the vine is slowly dieing back in spite of my best efforts.
I wish I had picked up some p. pallens seed at the gift shop. I figured I would be able to find some; Ron Boender said some was growing out behind BW, but all I found was escaped biflora, and wild foetida and pallida (previously known as suberosa--the plant found in Florida is pallida, true suberosa is found elsewhere).
One of the things I did afterwards was go looking for wild passiflora in FL. I found more pallida growing in the Keys, and some wild incarnata growing in LaBelle, FL.
It was a lot of fun, and I hope I can go to the next meeting too!