Harry Hay

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:13:30 PDT
I too was lucky enough to visit Harry and afterwards to get his 
catalog of seed he sent out free every year. There was always a story 
or two about some recent experience in his garden that made his 
catalog fun to read. At the moment I have an unidentified (and not 
weedy) white Nothoscordum in bloom from Harry seed, originally grown 
from Flores and Watson seed. Because he was so generous with others, 
people were generous with him. David Victor kindly took my husband 
and me to meet Harry and took along a number of plants to give him. 
Harry quickly went through those plants, saying, "I want this", "I 
don't want this", etc. David said he was always pleased if something 
he brought  to give him Harry wanted. I will never forgot that 
wonderful visit and the strange background noise from the freeway 
that made it sound like you were at the ocean, but you couldn't see 
any cars since so many plants had been added to provide a screen.

I was surprised that there was no notice on the list when he died. I 
think David said that he was to get the Herbert medal and people were 
waiting for that to be announced. I finally added a note not too long 
ago that he had died on the wiki page Lee started and I added to,
<http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…>

David Pilling added a link to John Grimshaw's blog about his death 
that you can access from there. It didn't say anything about his 
collection. Maybe someone on this list who knew him can let us know. 
I missed the catalog this year, not because I wanted more seeds since 
I hadn't ordered any recently, but just because I always like reading 
it and remembering the time I was lucky enough to get to meet him.

Mary Sue


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