Being from your neck of the woods is even worse than people from up in NY or something. I knew someone from Portland in college that said it rains almost all the time where they might only get a few weeks worth of sunny days the whole year. In the winter, the sun is lower, but we get plenty of sun.
How many plants do I have? Since I have specialized in cycads for 26 of my 28 years in the business, most of my plants are cycads. I don't know of you have found this yet, but here is my site
http://cycadjungle.8m.com
As I said, I have about 30,000 cycads, but many are my collection. Since ALL cycads are on the endangered species list my goal was to produce as many seeds as possible and spread them all over the world, when possible. (Since appendix 1 seeds need CITES permits to send to other countries) With everything I do, seed sales are still 1/3 to 1/2 of my income. I feel I am helping the world to spread around these endangered plants, but financially, the more rate the plant, the more the seeds go for. I probably have about 350 female cycads. Since almost all cycads live at least 100 years, cycads are an investment that gives you back for a lifetime. Actually, the majority of cycads live more than 300 years and most of the Dioons live well beyond 1000 years. As it is, I have a 400 year old Dioon edule in my front yard. A young person could invest $500 and after 5 to 10 years, make a living on that investment. People give these to their children and on past then. Even though this is not typical, and it is my best story, I have a ceratozamia in a 15 gallon container that produced 3 cones two years ago and when I put the seeds up for sale, they sold over night, and I made about $4200. Now that same plant just produced two cones that I have pollinated and I can pick them this spring.
Anyway, I also need Dyckias, which are terrestrial bromeliads that are super cold hardy (16F doesn't hurt them), they love full sun, and are very xeric. In different sizes, I have about 10,000 of those and about 2000 landscape types. Then there is evening else in small numbers. Maybe another 3000 plants. I am a collector and just have all kinds of things that I love for myself and after I have tested them in my location and they do well for about 3 years, then I will propagate them for sale. I have all kinds of palms, agaves, gingers, clivias, aroids, oh yea, hot pepper plants, assorted succulents, and who knows what else.
