They have long stems that have mostly been stripped of leaves. Is there any chance that segments of the leafless regions will root?

Any personal experiences (positive or negative) attempting this would be particularly useful.

Thanks for all the great info. I'm new to the area, although I grew up here. I'm in the south Bay, and the nurseries aren't the best, especially compared with those in the Berkeley area. I have been to Berkeley Hort and the Dry Garden. The nursery in Watsonville sounds particularly interesting. I've always wondered if they have anything there besides the wholesalers.

I haven't actually seen the plants, but I understand that Annie's annuals is selling Protea cynaroides (in a 4 inch pot, of course) for $10.95 by mail. Their nursery prices are pretty much always at least a bit lower than mail-order, generally a lot lower. They are hands down my favorite nursery at the moment,and they do have a good selection of South African plants--they seem to buy a fair amount of seeds from Silverhill. In the last couple months I have bought Cussonia transvaalensis and Cussonia paniculata for about $6 and $4 from them--beautiful plants bursting out of their 4 inch pots.

Actually, as far as rooting Protea cut flowers, I'm partly asking because a couple others find the idea intriguing. One has no access to plants (and cut flowers are hard to find) the other has easy access to flowers. One has a bit of greenhouse space and I assume considerable propagation experience. I'm guessing all three of us have experience germinating Protea seeds. I've never raised any to blooming size though, and this was a while ago.

I got the impression from a couple sources that Leucospermums are easier to root than other Proteaceae.

In southern California, there is also Jo O'Connell's nursery that does mail order, and she has a good selection of Australian and South African Proteacea plants. She is located in Ventura, and her website is www.australianplants.com

If you would like to get tapped in to the local horticultural scene and get better inside sources for plants, I would suggest joining either the Western Horticultural Society at www.westernhort.org and based in Los Altos, or the California Horticultural Society at www.calhortsociety.org and based in San Francisco. Joining either gets you a subscription to Pacific Horticulture Magazine, as well as monthly meetings, field trips to gardens, local wholesale nurseries, etc.

You may find you get bitten badly by the bug/interest in South African plants, I know I have, and love designing gardens with Fynbos plants such as Proteas, Restios and succulents. UC Santa Cruz Botanic Garden and the demonstration gardens at Sierra Azul Nursery in Watsonville are both great local to you examples of what one can do in their own garden.

Thanks again for the amazing amount of info and advice.

The thing about going up to the East Bay to go plant shopping is that I think I would need to get a much earlier start than I do now. I spend so long at Annie's and by the time I leave my brain is numb--it's so overwhelming. I will have to check those places out--maybe on a separate day. Does the SF flower mart have restricted hours? Are prices low?

The picture of the Mimetes that Annie's sells--and its price--led me to check out Sivlerhill's site. They do sell seeds for one (I don't remember the name) which is supposed to be maybe the most beautiful of the genus. It's a bog plant and is supposed to be easier than most.

It really sounds like Sierra Azul nursery is a place I should go to--I imagine it could be combined with a trip to UCSC. Last time I was there--about 2 months ago I think the only Proteaceae they had at the gift shop were a couple Banksias. By the way, I think the only way to have a decent shot at most of the plants at the UCSC sale is to become a member. We were there at noon, right when they let nonmembers in, and they had no Proteas, Leucadendrons or Leucospermums. I believe they had about 2 Banksias and actually silver trees (Leucadendron argenteum), which I also remember the one time I was at the Dry Garden. I ended up getting Strelitzia juncea on that Dry Garden trip.

One resource that I haven't taken advantage of is that we can special order Annie's plants from our local nursery (closest to me is Yamagami's in Cupertino). I find the Protea cynaroides plant particularly tempting, and it would save me the 120 mile round trip. Having germinated and killed the plant before, I seem to remember that in addition to the obvious appeal of its flowers, it was supposed to be relatively easy to grow, reasonably quick to bloom from seed, and fairly compact. In some senee a reasonable "beginner's plant" Are those correct impressions?

When I lived in Pasadena, my mom was visiting and we went to a Huntington sale and she picked up a Banksia, I think from the woman in Ventura. It didn't make it too long.

I went to one meeting of the Western Horticultural Society in Los Altos. My mom dragged me out there because the talk was about Peru, and she was about to go there on a trip. The speaker was Patrick Worley--the Passiflora hybridizer. Unfortunately they suspend their meetings for the summer. I meant to look them up again but forgot. Thanks for reminding me. I do need to get in touch with group(s) like that, if nothing else because I'm not aware of when the various plant sales are.

Isn't that a great book? Actually, pretty much all Timber Press books are. I bought it for my mom a few years back.

I mentioned Yamagamis in Cupertino as one place to special order Annie's plants (including hopefully P. cynaroides). There's also Roger Reynold's in Menlo Park and Half Moon Bay Nursery (they have a lot better selection than the other two) also Common Grounds in Palo Alto (never been there). Here's the whole list:

http://www.anniesannuals.com/info/outlets/buy.htm

I bought a beautiful Leucospermum in May at Orchard Supply Hardware in Sunnyvale. I checked with the wholesaler (Nurserymen's Exchange, I think in Half Moon Bay--Louise there was very friendly and helpful). It was Leucospermum ‘Carnival Red’ (L. glabrum x tottum). Unfortuanately it didn't make it. This was only $15, so it was worth it just for the flowers.

I'm trying to think if I've seen anything else lately--maybe a couple Leucadendrons at both Yamagami's and Roger Reynold's, but I haven't been looking. I don't think either was cheap.

One would think that we'd be a great place for growing these, especially given our proximity to Santa Cruz. Anyone else grow them in this area? I have a couple seedlings, but I don't know what they are (long story).

Does anyone know which plants are good for our area and/or which are the best "beginner's plants"

In case anyone is curious (maybe people from other countries in particular), here are temps and precip. for San Jose and for Oakland, which should resemble the climates similar to where most people in the the Bay area live (SF has lower highs and more fog/clouds, though):

San Jose:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?ca7821

Oakland:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?ca6332

And for comparison, this is Santa Cruz,where the large Protea collection is:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?ca7916

(I'm surprised to see that Santa Cruz has temps intermediate between the other 2. It is more humid and maritime than San Jose). All of these can vary locally by a lot.

Apologies to non-Americans for no metric in the tables above. Hope this helps:

80 F = 27 C
70 F = 21 C
60 F = 16 C
50 F = 10 C
40 F = 4 C

I think I only mentioned them in passing, but if you like to grow things from seeds, I would strongly recommend Silverhill in South Africa. I'm not sure exactly what the status is of ordering with all the current (expensive) regulations, but I think it's OK...I think there may be a thread about this. I ordered from them a few years back and everything I tried germinated except Welwitschias. Unfortunately I got a bit distracted and didn't try the rest of them...

I just recently stopped in at The Dry Garden Nursery in Oakland, and Richard does have a good stock of various 1 gallon Proteas, Leucadendrons, etc at the moment. If you are looking for instant impact and blooming specimens, you should definitely check out the Flora Grubb Nursery in San Francisco, as they always have great selection of blooming Leucadendrons, Leucospermums, and Proteas, as well as a nice selection of Grevilleas, Banksias, etc. I've had the best luck with any of the Proteas I have planted out in gardens when they are planted in raised beds/slopes, and I generally amend the soil volume well with pumice, perlite and fir bark based potting soils.

Just for informational purposes, the UCSC Botanic Garden had heavy losses of Leucospermum cordifolium cultivars in particular from the 1990 freeze and again in 1998, so I wouldn't trust any of these if you expect to get below 28F in winter. Leucadendron salignum and Protea 'Pink Ice' are easily hardy to low 20'sF if not hit with new soft growth.

These plants are addicting, aren't they?

David in Berkeley, aka Bahia

From what I remember it's not so much the ash that stimulates germination, but compounds in smoke, hence the smoke disks. However--and this is the strange part--the "liquid smoke" they sell in the grocery store also frequently works (check around the barbecue sauces, not the spices). The stuff smells pretty horrible, though. And again, not all species require it--for example Protea cynaroides--and perhaps there's a list somewhere.

The traditional way to create the smoke is to build a fire on top of the seeds. I found this in a plant propagation book and typed in in a while back to send to someone:

from "AHS Plant Propagation", by Alan Togood: "In nature, some seeds germinate only after a bush fire. The flames scarify the seed coat, and chemicals in the smoke stimulate germination. To simulate this, sow a tray of seeds, cover with 2 1/2 to 4 in (6-10 cm) of dry leaves, burn them, and water in the ash."

So hey, it can be fun. But seriously, between the number that just don't require it and those that will respond to the supermarket smoke solution my impression is that you have most of them covered. And this is nothing new for California Native plants either.

Regarding the surprising absence of a Protea forum. Did you realize that there's one for "Lucky Bamboo"?