Sharing plants with others

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Sun, 11 Sep 2011 11:01:26 PDT
All this talk about conserving plants and especially Rodger's last 
post about sharing reminds me of the visits we had with Sir Peter 
Smithers in Switzerland and Harry Hay in England. Both had amazing 
gardens with high levels of diversity and both believed in sharing 
with others. Although they never asked for anything in exchange, a 
lot of people wanted to give back and searched for special material 
to give them. Peter talked of some wonderful plants people brought 
him that he never would have had access to. He suggested that we 
visit a local Arboretum and when we did and talked to someone there 
we learned that a large part of their collection had begun with 
cuttings from the Smithers' garden.

Years ago we came up with the idea of the BX as a way to share with 
each other. It probably generates a tiny profit to help with other 
costs of running the Pacific Bulb Society, but this is not really a 
money generating project, but just a way that people can share their 
extras. It probably never would have been as successful as it has 
been if it were not for the dedication of Dell who has been in charge 
since 2002 and helped IBS with the same before then. That's a very 
long time to do such a time consuming job. No doubt some of the 
offerings go to people who may not live in places where it will be 
easy to grow what they order, but I'm sure we have a number of people 
with success. When someone offers something they originally got from 
the BX and continues the circle of giving it is especially nice.

This list also brings people together who share the same interests 
and I'm sure a lot of private trades or gifts result as well.

Thanks to all of you in this group who give (seeds, bulbs, helpful 
information, volunteer time for the Bulb Garden, the wiki, the 
Pacific Bulb Society).

Mary Sue




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