I'm sure you serious plumeria growers have heard of Jim Little, who is a grower in Hawaii. A couple of days ago on our way back from a gardening class, a friend and I stopped in Goodwill. ( I have issues with this place - everything is overpriced). Anyway, I bought a book (soft-bound , $1.99). The title is "Growing Plumerias in Hawai'i and Around the World", by Jim Little. It's a second edition, third printing in 2008 -- so not that old.
I've never visited Hawaii, but a paragraph in the book was a very sad statement of how some people can be. Perhaps some of these nurseries are allowing visitors again, but I'd like to share this excerpt from the book with you anyway.
"Valuable collections have also experienced thefts ranging from "just a cutting" to whole trees. Additionally, agriculture theft and crime cost Hawaii farm producers $11.4 million in 2004. This has prompted some farms and nurseries to discontinue hosting visitors. Total security to prevent theft and/or vandalism to equipment amounted to $7.4 million for all farms."
Further on in the book, he mentions Koko Head Botanical Garden, where some of the plumeria trees were over 40 years old. He adds: "A word of caution: some accession tags that once properly identified the trees have either been switched or stolen and names of the various trees cannot be relied upon".
I found this just awful. I remember going on a garden club tour, locally, a couple of years ago. I knew the lady and she told me that she no longer opened her garden to the "public" (there are a couple of benefits every year which would allow the public to come to your garden); because the previous year, she was convinced, someone had obviously gone on the tour, saw and coveted her beautiful plumeria in her front yard and that night it was dug up ! So, this is why I also don't do the benefit tours of my garden and will only allow a few garden clubs to come -- as I know a lot of these members.
While I'm on this rather unpleasant subject; let me share something else with you. The Executive Director of Leu Gardens (a beautiful botanical garden in Orlando) had always allowed visitors to ask staff members if they could have a cutting; or if they were with a garden group to take some cuttings from the back of the beds. He was very proud of the fact that he believed Leu Gardens was the only place in the US that allowed this. Well, it stopped a couple of years ago. Some idiotic, moronic woman posted on social media that you could "help yourself". He said that literally dozens of people came and went crazy, actually pulling up plants. They had to summon the ground staff to boot these people out of the gardens ! I heard this at one of the classes I take every year at the University of Florida in Gainesville (to keep up with continuing education hours as a MG); and for a few seconds you could have heard a pin drop, before the class erupted in disgusted groans.
