In the spring of 1971 we were ready to landscape our new home. Since we lived in South Florida, we thought we could use exotic tropical plants. Nearby was a nursery which grew traditional landscape plants, but they had a special area where they cultivated fantasy plants. They would only part with these special plants if you were a really good customer. Well, we were really good customers. Little by little we obtained this plants. It soon became evident that these plants would not do well as landscape foliage in South Florida's sub-tropical climate, but needed certain constant conditions. So was borne our first greenhouse and our lifelong obsession with tropical plants. This first greenhouse was only 14' x 15'. We out-grew that in one year. We then expanded to a 10' x 50' greenhouse and this one ran along one side of the house. Each year we built another one, completely surrounding our house.
We specialize in unusual Aroids and Ferns. We also grow, Heliconias, Bromiliads, Gingers, Palms and anything else that strikes our fancy and is unusual.
During these years we travelled to Jamaica, Dominica, Guadalupe, Martinque Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Columbia, Ecuador, Brazil, Tahiti, Taiwan, Malaysia, Sabah, Sarawak and collected plants, spore and seed.
In 1991 an Anthurium that we discovered in Colombia was named after us by Thomas Croat of the Missouri Botanical Garden.
In 1992 Hurricane Andrew blew in and blew out many plants and buried others. We were able to salvaged a number of them. It was amazing how many plants survived buried under shade screen and even did better than those not buried but exposed to the dry air and hot sun. ( There weren't any trees left so there wasn't any shade to protect the plants). We rebuilt and continued to collect.
Hurricane Andrew changed one other important thing. Our insurance company would not cover us for hurricanes anymore. We had to be insured by the state. The state would not insure our greenhouse structure nor (of course) the plants. We had to move.
We now live in North Central Florida. The climate is very different than South Florida. The summer is as hot as the south but it is also drier. We try to compensate for the lack of humidity with a fogging system. The winter is very cold and we have to heat much more. The greenhouse is completely enclosed in the winter and in the summer entirely except for the roof.
We are selling our extra divisions, seedling and sporlings, so that we can continue to grow these unusual plants.
