PBS Forum

Dear members living in the EU,
The autumn EU seed and bulb exchange will soon close for donations. Please read this email carefully and completely.
We do not set a fixed date  due to the different time span parcels need within the EU.
Martin would like to open the distribution for the second round on the weekend of October 12 and 13th. Which means that your donation should have reached him  by October 10th. The absolute deadline would be October 14th but in this case with a complete packing list sent to him in advance. (garak@code-garak.de) This solution gives us all some flexibility. You will know best how long a parcel will take from your home country to Martin's.
Please inform Martin about your donation.

Please do not stress yourself with seed which might not be ripe by then. If this is the case it is unlikely that your unripe seed is for autumn sowing. (So far we are not able to offer an exchange for the ephemeral seeds of South African autumn flowering bulbs) There will be a spring exchange for summer growing bulbs and seed to be sown in spring.
If you want to send in seed, it would reduce Martin's workload if you would pre-pack five portions. If there is enough seed each portion should give a good potful of seedlings. If seed is scarce or rare the minimum per packet should be 3 seeds. If there is plenty of seed you can add a larger number in an extra envelope as a reserve for Martin in case of greater demand.  Pre-packing is voluntary, of course. Seed envelopes can be ordered free of charge from Martin. Bulbs should arrive in one bag with no pre-packing. Please label everything with the scientific name of the plant and your name so that your contribution can be referred to you.

As usual, you will get a bonus which covers your postage or 5 US$ minimum, only if this is the second donation for this same autumn exchange, your bonus will be slightly less.
Please send your donation to:
Martin Bohnet
Ludwigstr. 1
73035 Goeppingen
Germany
The opening of the ordering time window will be announced separately through the same channels. We can already say that this second round has a lot of good stuff to look forward to.....

Don't hesitate to get in touch with me (Uli) if you have questions
Uli

Dear members living in the EU,

The first round of the EU autumn Seed and Bulb Exchange is now closed.
Martin will send your orders in the next time to come. The donations remain open until further notice, some interesting material has already been announced.
Please wait with payments until you receive your order which will include a payment slip.

Happy growing 

Uli 

Dear Members living in the EU,

The autumn Bulb and Seed exchange is now open for donations until further notice. This is the announcement for the EU only, please do not confuse it with the open donation for the USA. Unfortunately we cannot serve members outside the EU.

Please send your donation to:

Martin Bohnet

Ludwigstr. 1

73035 Göppingen    (you can also write Goeppingen)

Germany

You can send seed as well as bulbs. Please do only send clean and healthy material and label your donation with the botanical name of the plant/seed and your name as a donor so that your donations can be referred to you.

Every donor will receive credit to cover postage. But please do not use unnecessarily expensive forms of postage.

As we have done before, we ask you again to pre-pack your seed donation into 5 portions, enough to raise a good potful of seedlings. For very rare seed or those in short supply there should not be less than 3 to 5 seeds per packet. If you have plenty and you think that there may be high demand, you can add a larger portion as a reserve for Martin to fill more envelopes if necessary. Pre packing is voluntary, of course, but it helps considerably to reduce Martin's workload. Seed envelopes are available free of charge from Martin.

Bulbs should not be pre-packed but sent in one well labelled bag, preferably paper and not plastic.

You will be informed through the same channels once the donation time window will close and ordering starts.

Please make up your mind if you want Martin to send your future order trackable. This will increase your expense for postage by 3 US $ on top of the postage. We are asking because with the joint bulb order from South Africa there was some headache with delayed parcels  from Martin to southern Europe. Tracking does not really speed up delivery (I wish it did....) but this way at least you know the whereabouts of your parcel. I will repeat this question once the ordering will start. We always try to keep expenses as low as possible so it is your choice.

As we have received this question with every EU BX so far: Please do not hesitate to donate material of plants you might not find worth donating. As long as you enjoy a particular plant yourself, someone else will as well. A common plant in one country may be a rarity in another one. So far we have never turned down a donation.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me, Uli, in case of questions

Uli and Martin

Dear All,

The first box of two of the EU joint bulb oder from South Africa is in Martin's hands now and the individual packets will be posted.
The second box is still at customs, we have no influence on the timing but as the first box was cleared after some correspondence we think the second one should go through as well.
We are sorry for the delay for part of the orders.
There was and is a tremendous amount of bureaucracy and correspondence involved with these joint orders and there are some hiccups.

We keep you posted

Uli and Martin

Dear members living in the EU,
Having received several orders after sending out the reminder, I will close the ordering time window today at 24:00h Central European Time. No more orders will be accepted after that.
Bye for now
Uli

Dear members living in the EU,
The EU joint bulb order from the SA Bulb Company will be closing soon. If you still want to order, please send me an email with your order as soon as possible. This joint order is only open to fully paid members who have a mailing address in one of the EU countries.
Bye for now
Uli

Dear members living in the EU,
The EU joint bulb order from the SA Bulb Company will be closing soon. If you still want to order, please send me an email with your order as soon as possible. This joint order is only open to fully paid members who have a mailing address in one of the EU countries.
Bye for now
Uli

Dear members living in the EU,


After a successful joint book order from the South African Bulb Company and very pleasant and efficient correspondence with the owner, we decided to do a joint bulb order as well. You have to be a fully paid member to participate, if not yet, you can join the PBS at any time. The shipment of the bulbs will go to Martin in Germany via DHL, the cost of a phytosanitary certificate, shipment and a customs agent at the point of entry in Germany will be divided between the ordering members and a final cost of postage to your mailing address will be added, too.

Please read the instructions at the beginning of the price list carefully, however, the bureaucratic hassle is taken over by us.

The price list contains many tempting bulbs. Please bear in mind, that they come from the Southern Hemisphere with inverted seasons, which means that it is autumn/beginning winter in South Africa now. It might be a good idea to stick to summer growing plants which will be shipped in a dormant state at this time of the year. Some of the winter growers may still be dormant, I do not know which ones. There is always a certain risk of loss when doing hemisphere swaps and it needs a certain experience in growing bulbs to do so. Personally I will stick to summer growers or evergreen bulbs.

Please do also bear in mind that flowering size bulbs can be very big (Crinum, Brunsvigia, Boophone) and heavy and therefore cause expensive postage. We will divide the postage between the members reflecting their order.

When ordering: please follow these instructions very carefully:

Deadline for orders is May 20th, but I advise you to order as soon as possible. Your order will be immediately sent on to Leigh from the South African Bulb Company as bulbs need to be reserved. Which means that you cannot change your order after posting it to me. I will confirm the reception of your order, if not, please come back to me.

The invoice for the joint order will be sent to me only after the entire order is complete. I will forward the expenditure.

Shipment will be in June as a soil test in South Africa has to be awaited before shipping. Again, please keep in mind that it might be late for winter growing bulbs.

You will receive an invoice with your bulbs.

Please do not hesitate to get back to me, Uli,  if you have questions

Please refer to the attached price list

Uli and Martin

Dear members living in the EU,
The spring seed and bulb exchange is now closed for orders. Please wait with any payments until you receive your order together with a payment slip from Martin.
The next EU exchange will take place in autumn and will be announced through all the channels. Please do not send any material to Martin in the meantime.
We wish you happy growing and a good summer!
Uli and Martin

Following a question after my donation of Achimenes and other rhizomatous Gesneriads to the EU BX, here is how I get them through the winter.
In autumn I try to keep the vegetation going as long as possible after flowering. This ensures good and healthy rhizomes. I keep fertilizing with a general fertilizer rich in potassium to build up the scaly rhizomes. Once the plant goes dormant I stop watering immediately and move the pot into a room with about 12-15 degrees centigrade. The rhizomes remain in their pots in the substrate which should be completely dry. A trap to avoid is residual moisture in larger plastic pots which might lead to rot during dormancy. Overwintering the dormant pots in a cold but frost free greenhouse has led to almost total loss, it was too cold. Repotting takes place around this time of the year and the rhizomes are started with gentle bottom heat until shoots are visible. I do not store dormant rhizomes in bags: in paper bags they dry up too much and in plastic bags they might rot. Storage in the dry substrate has proven to be best.
The same procedure applies to Caladiom tubers, they are even more sensitive to too cold storage condition.
Attached is a picture of X Smithicodonia 'Heartland's Joy', a reliable hybrid

Dear Members living in the EU,
The second round of the EU Exchange will soon go online. The donation is still open but will close in due course, closure will be announced through the same channels. If you still have something to donate to your fellow gardeners, please get in touch with Martin directly to let him know. <garak@code-garak.de>
Once all the donations have arrived, Martin will put the list online and you will be informed through the same channels.
Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if you have questions

Happy gardening
Uli

Dear All,
The time window for ordering the Amaryllidaceae Book for Europe is now closed.
Uli

Dear All,
We have had sufficient response in order to start the bulk order for Europe of the Book Amaryllidaceae of Southern Africa. As we need a definite number to calculate postage and to finally place the order, this is an announcement that the ordering time window will close on March 31st at midnight Central European Time.
The large hard cover book costs half price (45US$) plus shared postage from South Africa plus individual postage from Germany to you. Please come back to me if you have questions.
Thank you for your interest.

This is another, different announcement from the one you might have read a few days ago, concerning the USA

As many of you might have heard, the publisher of the Book Amaryllidaceae of Southern Africa by Graham Duncan and Barbara Jeppe is closing. There are books available at half price which are being sold by the South African Bulb Company. The Pacific Bulb Society has negotiated a bulk order for this book at half price. Postage of the bulk to Europe will be divided between those who order and postage to each individual will be added. The PBS does not gain any profit out of this, it is a service at cost for the membership but non-members are also welcome to order..
However, as this book is not new, we would like to asses interest in a bulk order to Europe before we proceed. The book is about 3kg heavy so that the postage will be expensive even if shared. The book is very good, though.
Please come back to me (Uli, my email is  johannes-ulrich-urban@t-online.de) if you are interested. We need a minimum number of orders to make it worthwhile and we would ask you to state a binding interest before we order. We do not expect a pre-payment as this would mean to start a second payment procedure for the postage. You would receive a payment slip together with the book, same as we do for the BX.

If you live outside the EU it might be worthwhile checking with the South African Bulb company directly as postage outside the EU might eat up the good price. There will be a bulk order in the USA, but postage from the US to other countries is expensive, too.
UK members should contact the Southern African Bulb Group https://www.sabg.tk/  who will also do a bulk order.

We cannot exactly state the final price because the postage of the bulk order depends on the number of books ordered and on the individual postage to you.

Please do not hesitate to contact me in case of questions
Uli  (and Martin)

This is another, different announcement from the one you might have read a few days ago, concerning the USA

As many of you might have heard, the publisher of the Book Amaryllidaceae of Southern Africa by Graham Duncan and Barbara Jeppe is closing. There are books available at half price which are being sold by the South African Bulb Company. The Pacific Bulb Society has negotiated a bulk order for this book at half price. Postage of the bulk to Europe will be divided between those who order and postage to each individual will be added. The PBS does not gain any profit out of this, it is a service at cost for the membership but non-members are also welcome to order..
However, as this book is not new, we would like to asses interest in a bulk order to Europe before we proceed. The book is about 3kg heavy so that the postage will be expensive even if shared. The book is very good, though.
Please come back to me (Uli, my email is  johannes-ulrich-urban@t-online.de) if you are interested. We need a minimum number of orders to make it worthwhile and we would ask you to state a binding interest before we order. We do not expect a pre-payment as this would mean to start a second payment procedure for the postage. You would receive a payment slip together with the book, same as we do for the BX.

If you live outside the EU it might be worthwhile checking with the South African Bulb company directly as postage outside the EU might eat up the good price. There will be a bulk order in the USA, but postage from the US to other countries is expensive, too.
UK members should contact the Southern African Bulb Group https://www.sabg.tk/  who will also do a bulk order.

We cannot exactly state the final price because the postage of the bulk order depends on the number of books ordered and on the individual postage to you.

Please do not hesitate to contact me in case of questions
Uli  (and Martin)

During a trip to central Portugal, I came across this field of tulips. My attention was raised because I saw people with bunches of cut flowers and when I saw the place it looked like red poppies at first glance. Unfortunately a lot of the plants were trampled on, the whole site looked like cultivated land. Most of the flowers were spent but I managed to photograph a fairly good one. They were about 60 to 70 cm tall and the leaves looked like garden tulips. I thought of Tulipa sprengeri but it does not have a blotch. Flora-on which covers practically every plant in Portugal only lists T. sylvestris as native. An old hybrid gone wild?
Thank you for your help 

This very interesting contribution appeared in the email list, see a copy below.

I would be interested in a potential joint order of the new field guide to Oxalis and sent an email to Stellenbosch University asking when it would be published.

Here is the contribution 

Message: 11
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 19:00:44 -0800
From: Comcast <jerlynne@comcast.net>
To: Pacific Bulb Society <pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>
Subject: [pbs] Oxalis Book-Leanne Dreyer
Message-ID: <27B68EC7-8350-4048-BB05-48CDCDBE3796@comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;    charset=utf-8

Apparently Professor Dreyer is writing a field guide for oxalis.

https://www0.sun.ac.za/researchforimpact/2023/08/29/oxalis-a-genus-in-a-hurry/

Hopefully the link to the article works.

I don?t know if this is something where there might be a group book order sponsored by the PBS.

Jeron

Dear members living in the EU,
The EU Seed and Bulb Exchange is now open for donations. As usual we will do two rounds, the first one is mainly for seed which is less prone to cold damage in the mail. But depending on where you live and depending how urgently some bulbs must be planted...., you can also send bulbs. The second round will be distributed about 4 weeks after the first one. That is for the more fragile items.  Donations can be sent to Martin from now on until further notice. You will be updated through the same channels. All EU members should receive a personal email, if not, please come back to Uli.

Please send only clean, healthy and pest free material, labelled with the scientific name and your name so that each item can be  assigned to the donor.

To reduce Martin's  workload, we would appreciate if you could pre-pack your seed donation. Bulbs do not need to be pre-packed and should come in one single bag for each species. For seed 5 portions of the same seed which are enough to produce a reasonable potful of seedlings, with very rare seed a portion can go down to 3-5 seeds. As usual, this is entirely voluntary and free seed envelopes can be requested from Martin. If the seed is plentiful, you can add an extra, larger portion for Martin to pack in case of more than 5 people ordering it.
As a donor you will get a bonus which covers the cost of postage. This bonus can be used for your own orders or for membership payments.
The full instructions for the EU Seed and Bulb Exchange of the Pacific Bulb Society can be found on the website under Bulb Exchanges. The most important points to participate: You must have a postal address in one of the EU countries and you must be a fully paid member. You do not need to be a donor to be entitled to order from the exchanges
Please send you donations to:                Martin Bohnet
                                                            Ludwigstr. 1
                                                            73035 Goeppingen
                                                            Germany
                                                            <garak@code-garak.de>

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me (Uli) in case of questions: johannes-ulrich-urban@t-online.de     

You have been very generous in the past with your donations, thank you very much for this! We are looking forward to a new and rich exchange


Uli and Martin

Dear members living in the EU,
Spring is on its way.... So please think of your fellow gardeners when you do your seasonal repotting and sowing.... the next seed and bulb exchange for all those items which need sowing and planting in spring will soon be announced. You will be informed about the details and dates shortly.
Please do not hesitate to come back to me if you have questions



Happy gardening,


Uli

Dear members living in the EU,
The time window for donations will be closed tomorrow night. If you still have something to donate for the current autumn exchange, please send it NOW. And send an email to Martin <garak@code-garak.de> so that he would know what is under way and include it into the list of donations.
The second round of the EU-BX will soon go online, you will be informed through the same channels.
If you are still impatiently staring at some seed capsules which do not want to ripen.... please don't forget that there will be another EU exchange next spring. Most likely, any seed which is not ripe by now is not for autumn sowing anyway.

As usual, do not hesitate to get in touch with Uli  <johannes-ulrich-urban@t-online.de> if you have questions.
Uli and Martin