Please be aware that seeds of many Allium species are donated, often in large amounts, to the North American Rock Garden Society (NARGS) Seed Exchange and, I assume, to the Alpine Garden Society (AGS) and Scottish Rock Garden Club (SRGC) exchanges. Joining one or more of these societies gives you access to thousands of kinds of seeds at very low cost. Alliums are one of the easiest genera of bulbs to grow, flowering after as little as 2 years. The last two years our NARGS chapter handled the "surplus" distribution, the second round where members could order up to 100 packets, and there must have been more than 50 species or subspecies of Allium in that box (the order filling took place in my spare room, so I'm very familiar with it). If Allium were an interest of mine, I would have been very happy about that! I do grow a few, particularly the small western American species, and a couple of tall ones for cutting. Just planted about 60 French Gray shallots in the vegetable garden and hope they prosper. Someone mentioned Allium nigrum as potentially invasive and I'd agree with that. It's frequent in cultivated fields where native so must spread readily by offsets. The only one I grow that's prone to spread is Allium pulchellum, but it is such a pretty cut flower that I keep it in an area where it's easily controlled. Membership in all the international rock garden societies (there are more than the three mentioned above) is declining disturbingly, partly because of demographics. Another factor is the decision by the US government to prohibit the importation of small quantities of garden seed without a permit. The permits (thanks largely to the effort of Joyce Fingerut of NARGS) can be obtained without cost, but they have to be renewed frequently and the procedure is tedious. NARGS has to send its permits out to all its foreign members to enable them to donate, and people in the USA who belong to AGS or SRGC have to get the permits and send them to the societies with their seed orders. The root of this annoyance was the move of the US Department of Agriculture to place its inspection subdepartment (wonderfully known by the acronym APHIS) in the Department of Homeland Security, established newly after the 9-11 attack; moves of this kind were popular because it allowed the parent agencies to transfer the expense of the subdepartments to the well-funded DHS. Nonetheless, I encourage our PBS members to join one or more rock garden societies, even if you don't have a "rock garden." All three have good quarterly print journals and interesting meetings. And Allium seeds. Jane McGary, Portland, Oregon _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…