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Re: Thompson & Morgan Successful Seed Raising

>Although I look forward to reading the bulletin, I'm hoping that it will be
>better than the quality of the seeds I have received from Thompson & Morgan
>in the last couple of years.  I wonder if anyone else has been experiencing
>this?
>
>At first I thought it was simply that I hadn't honed my germination skills to
>the point where I could be successful with the particular varieties I was
>interested in, but recently I have spoken to two other people (a propagation
>instructor at a local college and a local landscape designer) who were
>commenting on the low-to-zero germination rate they were getting from many of
>the T&M seeds they'd ordered.  When some seed is priced at twenty to thirty
>cents PER SEED, this can be a very expensive failure.  I was very relieved to
>hear their comments - perhaps it hadn't been all my fault after all!
>
>I would be very interested to hear if anyone else has noticed a similar
>problem.  I wonder if this might have anything to do with the "mother"
>company being based in England?  Could it be possible those of us in the U.S.
>are receiving old seed?
>
>C. Carter


Ditto on the above sentiments.....We purchased a lot of seed from T&M in
the last 2 years, and have been disappointed with the germination rates.
Certainly one could say that low rates might be the norm for the 'tough to
germinate' items, but we had across the board failure, except for carrots.
This year we severely limited what we purchased from them in order to save
time and avoid disappoinment.

*Rumor* has it that the American division of T&M re-packages year old seed
from the British arm of the company and sells them as new--don't know if
it's true, but after our experiences, we wouldn't be surprised if it was.
However, in defense of the company, we should say that they happily
credited/refunded the money spent on the 'no-grows' (tho' we'd rather have
had the plants!).

Since having learned our lesson from our T&M experiences, we have been
fortunate enough to locate a vast number of resources for 'unusual'
perennial and shrub seeds across the U.S. (Arrowhead Alpines), as well as
from England (Chiltern), Germany (Jelitto), and the Czech Republic (Josef
Halda)--and the germination rates *are* significantly higher.

At the risk of going even further off topic, we'll provide the addresses of
the companies we listed--hope no one minds :- ).

Jelitto Staudensamen GmbH
Postfach 1264
D-29 685 Schwarmstedt
Germany
011 49 50 71 40 85 Phone
011 49 50 71 40 88 Fax
Free catalog
Seeds (some very interesting varieties)

Jelitto Seeds
125 Chenoweth Ln.
Louisville, KY  40207
phone: (502) 895-0807
fax: (502) 895-3934

Chiltern Seeds
Bortree Stile
Ulverston
Cumbria LA12 7PB
England
Catalog is $5.00 refundable with first order
Seeds (lots!)
Tel 01229 581137
Fax 01229 584549
E-mail (Compu-serve) 101344.1340@compuserve.com

Arrowhead Alpines
PO Box 857
Fowlerville, MI  48836
(517) 223-3581
fax: 223-8750
Plants, seeds, shrubs, rooted cuttings...don't be fooled by the'Alpine' in
the name.
Big selection of really hard to find stuff

Josef J. Halda
P.O. Box 110
501 01 Hradec Kralove 2
Czech Republic

Okay, 'nuf said.

Bill & Harvey
SKID Zone 6 CT USA
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