JJ Plumeria in Retail Stores

To all our friends and fans: thanks to everyone who let us know that certain individuals are combing through Lowes/Home Depot stores, buying our rarer varieties in order to resell them. This puts us in a delicate position. On the one hand, it’s nice to know that our plants warrant such attention. But on the other hand, this completely defeats the purpose of mixing

special plumeria with our more common varieties. We add rarities for one reason - to make it exciting for you to find a rare plumeria.

We mix a few, and let me repeat... few… of our specials to give fans like you a treasure hunt. Can you run down to your local Lowes and snap up an Xquisite? Maybe. Here’s the numbers - we shipped over of 10,000 plumerias this year to

big box retailers. Of that number, less than 15 were Xquisite. Gina? Less than 5. Pink Jack? Zero. Orotai, Orange Jack, Valkyrie? Sorry, but you won't find these varieties in Lowes or Home Depot. From a business point of view, we don’t have to include rarities – we do it to make it fun. But we heard your complaints, and recognize that when someone pads their own pockets, it takes the opportunity to find a special plumeria away from everyone else. Unfortunately, we have no control over this situation, other than to discontinue adding collector varieties… to everyone’s loss.

We do have resellers across the country - they buy our varieties at wholesale, and we ask them to maintain our suggested retail price. To their credit, we rarely have an issue with this, and I believe all parties are satisfied with the arrangement. This gives our fans that live far from our growing grounds in Vista, California access to our collector varieties. I also don’t have any problem with folks who previously bought our plants, made cuttings and sold them. Such is the nature of plumeria…

The variety mix at retailers is changing, as some of our older varieties, e.g. J105, Elsie, Dulcemia, Temptation and Purple Jack, become more readily available. Over time, we will reduce our prices to ensure fairness. Purple Jack is a great example, as there will be a bunch hitting the stores. The same applies to any seasonal bumper crop, such as Captivate. We do our best to be fair and respectful of those who do pay our list prices, and apologize for any misunderstanding or occasional error.

I hope this provides a little better perspective of Jungle Jack’s view of big box retailers. But most of all, a big thank you for your support, interest, and patronage.