Re: Nurseries
- To: david feix
- Subject: Re: Nurseries
- From: W* B*
- Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 11:29:21 -0800 (PST)
Dear all,
There has been a long-150 years or more-history of botany and horticulture
in California, which is fun to research and read about. In this history
there has been a place for women botanists and horticulturists, from the
wives of homesteaders, to Alice Eastwood, botanist at the California
Academy of Science and Kate Sessions (the 'mother' of Balboa Park) at the
turn of the century. All of these early people and the people who followed
them wrote to each other, describing the plants they were discovering and
how to grow them. They stayed in touch with like-minded people in the
world by mail, as we do through the internet now.
When one thinks about it, the accounts of the Lewis and Clark expedition
two hundred years ago, or earlier the papers and letters of Linneas, are
good reading. Even further back, the gardens of the Greeks, spread by
Alexander the Great (some think), or what is known of Roman gardens and
their cultivation can be added to this universal interest that we all
share. How lucky we are to have the internet and medit-plants.
Elly Bade
Berkeley, CA
On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, david feix wrote:
> Tim and Moira,
> Maybe it is my ignorance of what has come before in
> California horticulture, and what has been lost to the
> trade, as well as not being as well read as the two of
> you, but these seem like extremely exciting times to
> be involved with horticulture in the San Francisco Bay
> Area and California in general. There seems to be a
> never ending explosion of new plants to try, more
> plant collecting being done by both individuals and
> botanic gardens, and a general enthusiasm for new and
> old plants here, that I certainly am not complaining.
> If anything, the most frustrating thing for me is that
> so many things which already are here in our superb
> local botanic gardens, aren't generally more
> available. Being more of a landscape design person
> than a good propagator, I always prefer to take the
> easy way out and start with plants rather than
> cuttings or seed. I know that the first thing is to
> let people know what you'd like, and hopefully they
> will grow it for you!
>
> We seem to be able to keep the middle ground of
> industry people here in California as well, besides
> the hobbiest/early retirees and young enthusiasts, but
> it probably doesn't pay any better here than
> elsewhere. The incredible price of California real
> estate, and our continuing problems with energy and
> water costs may start to take a toll if we here in
> California can't turn this ridiculous current energy
> situation around. Someone is really making out like
> bandits here, and energy traders seem like the prime
> candidates.
>
>
> --- Tim Longville <tim@eddy.u-net.com> wrote:
> > Mike, Moira -
> >
> > Many thanks for the grand weeping and wailing and
> > gnashing of teeth! I
> > didn't intend (honest!) to set off such a chorus of
> > lamentation!
> >
> > I don't think the overall situation (yet) is as
> > desperate in the UK as
> > you make it sound in the US and NZ. Indeed, it
> > isn't. If The Plant
> > Finder can list 70, 000+ different plants, it really
> > can't be, even
> > allowing for the inclusion of hundreds of HT roses,
> > this year's fancy
> > bedding pelargoniums, etc etc.
> >
> > There is indeed a serious reduction in the number of
> > nurseries
> > offering mail order and that is a worry. There is
> > also a worrying
> > number of very high-quality long-established
> > specialists going out of
> > business (Hannays of Bath, the Evanses of Waterwheel
> > Nursery, for
> > example), partly just because the owners were 'of
> > that age' but also,
> > I think, because they'd grown tired of the
> > increasingly difficult
> > struggle to make the business pay.
> >
> > I don't, though, think there's any aggressive 'big
> > business' invasion
> > here of the world of the small independent
> > nurseryman. Which is in one
> > way encouraging and in another the reverse - since
> > it's not happening,
> > I suspect, simply because it's so obvious that such
> > nurserymen are
> > mostly in anything but a healthy commercial
> > situation.
> >
> > I can't imagine, though, that there won't always be
> > new people
> > sufficiently mad about plants to take the job
> > (vocation?) on - both
> > young ones at the beginning of professional
> > horticultural careers and
> > older people taking early retirement from something
> > else. Which is
> > partly pious hope - but also (I'd bet money - though
> > not much) a fair
> > guess at the grip plant-addiction exerts and will
> > continue to exert.
> > Tim Longville
> >
>
>
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