Hawkeye, most of us start out by ordering cuttings/plants online. Our town got lucky this summer - our Lowes got in a slew of Plumeria 'Devine' and I bought 12 plants. Now, I'm in a position to trade for different ones.

kayjones, I started a few cuttings earlier in the month if succesful I will be wanting to get more to start in the spring time. Is there a list somewhere of recommended on-line places to buy, good quality, reasonably priced cuttings?

That is my question also. I have seen posts where someone ordered several at a reasonable prices. But where?
Is there a reputable place in FL?

We've had pretty good success with Derrick from a-piece-of-paradise.org.. Prices are just about unbeatable, and has a good selection. So far, I have 12 of his cuttings.

He's on Oahu.

Yes, you can't beat Derrick's prices for unrooted cuttings.

I have to say that my fav seller is Fuzzy, Bloomingplumerias on ebay. What you get from him is exactly what you see, as he does post photos of the cuttings he is auctioning off. I bought quite a few rooted cuttings from him and was always happy. He is very quick to ship out.

Bradsbudsandblooms, in florida, sells mostly rooted plants, some cuttings.

Floridacolors has both unrooted cuttings and grafted plants.

Junglejacks, Alohaplumeria, Alohatropicals, mauiplumeriagardens, BNJ Exotics, Exoticplumeria...
the list goes on and on....

The frustrating part about bidding on Ebay is the auctions. The Buy It Now is great but the bidding is nerve wracking. Yesterday I had high bid on a Waimea from Matt for 2 days running. I bid $30 and was watching timer run down. Got down to 30 seconds and I thought I had it made. Then, with 5 seconds left, the bid jumped to $37, and with 2 seconds left, it went to $47. So much for that. 8*(

This week Matt had a rooted cutting of JL Mosaic that went for $93.50 after 13 bids. Umm, I'm sure it is a wonderful and rare variety but for that price I could buy two large blooming trees at Island Plumeria or Pacific Plumeria. I know it is a bit early to be thinking about the spring cutting sale in San Diego but does anyone here know what range of price you will see for cuttings there? Is that sale as much of a feeding frenzy as the September sale was?

Hawkeye, Sorry for hijacking your thread but looks like we got some good info. I'm thinking it might be worthwhile to make a road trip in the spring to San Diego. Will look at the various sites a little later. Thanks to all for the info.

When I went to Pacific Plumeria in August they told me that two women had been there that had driven from Arizona, bought as many plumerias as would fit in their vehicle and then headed back to Arizona. Marathon trip for plumerias but Pacific Plumeria does have nice stuff, glad it is only an hour and a half from me!

Maui Plumeria Gardens is a fantastic reputable place to buy from as well. Not only are they high quality but you get to choose the number of tips, no bidding, they always include freebies and it's shipped by FedEx.

On the MPG forum someone has had issues with Aloha Tropicals selling the wrong variety / wrong name more than once and it sounded intentional. The buyer said if they had done their research they would have seen all the bad reviews on them. I haven't bought anything from them, I'm just passing on what I read.

Now I'm in trouble!! My wife read here that I should make a spring trip to San Diego and now she is making plans to go. It's only about 2500 miles one way. No problem.

hawkeye - I fail to see the problem. She gets her vacation, you get your plants. Just rent a tractor trailer!

Just a warning on sellers from Hawaii: The roots on these plants tend to be puny in my experience. And on one plant I got just nubs on the bottom end! I gave one seller another chance recently because he or she has been raved about so much, but these roots do not compare at all to the ones I get from the two main plumeria mail-orders in Florida (Brad Buds and Blooms, and Florida Colors).

Take it with a grain of salt; this may be a problem with the agricultural inspection there accidentally breaking the roots or the sellers just shove them out without giving the cuttings more time to produce more roots.

DelWH, as far as E-Bay goes, everything I've read (NOT on E-Bay's site) about the 'Best way to win' is to wait until the last minute, or few seconds, before placing your bid --and then placing the highest bid you are actually willing to pay.

It's called sniping and it's so common. Especially when there are limited vendors selling what you want. That is why most bidding on the coveted cultivars sells high at the last minute. The snipers usually know what the average price is going for though -- and beat it.

And there's a theory that once someone bids on something, it actually draws more attention from other potential bidders and prices actually go even higher. Can you say 'buyer frenzy'? Some bidders get competetive and all logic goes out the window.

If you outbid someone early on, E-Bay sends them an email notifying them they've been outbid. E-Bay wants to get the competetive juices flowing and will do everything to get you to bid early, bid often! LOL!

Yeah, I think you're right about waiting till late in the game to bid. I've never really bid on anything before on Ebay, just done the buy it now route. I did however manage to win 2 bids on Matt's closeouts, and got a rooted Teresa Wilder and a rooted JL Ammaron's Curly White. Matt's been having some 1 day bid sales so it's easier to wait until the last minute on those. The longer ones, I forget they are happening.

And yes, I see what you mean about the emails, telling you you've been outbid. That's the old auction trick, updated to the web, to keep the action going.

I've not seen the one-day bid sales. You can also mark the ones you're interested in by putting them on your 'Watch List'. That way you'll get emails periodically letting you know when the auctions come close to ending. 'Last chance to bid on ....!"

By putting something on your Watch list, you can keep an eye on it and not actually have to bid, thereby not drawing quite as much attention to the product (according to theory). However, now I see that you can see how many people have it on their Watch Lists, so that kind of defeats the purpose. If you see a plumeria has 15 watchers you know other people might be ready to snipe on it.

You used to be able to see who was bidding against you and then look up their buying histories and seeing about how much they spent on things. That's all gone now, unfortunately.

Apologies to original poster. I kind of highjacked the thread. But maybe you will find this interesting.