Keeping the sources wiki page up to date

[Martin Bohnet]

One of the pages of the wiki that always needs a lot of updates and maintenance is the list of bulb and seed sources. I'd like to have this topic as an input form for that site to keep it up to date and well filled. As the wiki page already states:

We excluded catalogs that resell bulbs and seeds grown by big mass-market firms (they are very capable of promoting themselves), companies that have recently generated a significant number of unresolved complaints among our members, and companies that are known to dig wild bulbs for sale (the only exception is rescue missions where bulbs are about to be destroyed by development).

So obviously it's not a good idea for everyone with a wiki writing access to blindly add sources without a pre-discussion here.

I have a few ideas to add

Category Bulbs Europe:

https://www.myorchids.de/  good list of otherwise nearly impossible to obtain terrestrial orchids with a focus on Australian genera like Diuris, Thelymitra and Pterostylis from well documented nursery origin. The list is updated once a year in June, with some species shipped in July, others in October. Dr Beyrle is a known mycorrhizza specialist.  The only question is: will we add a source highly specialized on a side-topic?

Category seeds Europe

https://wildflowerseeds.eu/ Wild collected seeds from all over the world, including a good selection of monocotyledons. Quality and germination is good in my experience, but I'm a bit worried about the wild origin.

Other entries may require an update - rareplants.co.uk still doesn't ship to EU though they still try to keep the hope up, and is there still remaining activity at Bulb'Argance? Please offer your input.

[David Pilling]

As I understood it from Lauw, Bulb d'Argence is over.
The sources page is popular, but needs someone to maintain it - it is not just a wiki page but a Google custom search engine. I am not totally feckless, the page has been checked, just not as often as it should be.

[Martin Bohnet]

I actually tried to understand the google mechanism, how to define the target pages. I couldn't from checking serach.php alone. But that's something for the team discussion.

Lauw seems to have trouble to really get over with business, he's still offering those: https://www.bulbargence.com/m_catalogue/favori.php

Another one  I'd love to add a warning to is Jānis Rukšāns' site - mind you, not because of "recent trouble" but just a warning that his ordering window is extremely small, due to tax regulations about how much he may sell while keeping the small business legal status (which means far less paperwork). I don't think it was much more than 3 days for the 2022 list.

[David Pilling]

Lauw - quoting the website "The commercial activity of the website is very reduced (3-4 species this winter) but the website will stay online as a source of information"

Websites can be like the Marie Celeste, they sail on their lights still lit, but the captain and crew have left.

With CSE you have to logon to Google using the PBS account to set things up.