RarePlants.co.uk and the Brexit

[Martin Bohnet]

As many may know, Brexit is a curse for European and British gardeners alike, but the recent newsletter from Paul Christian really knocked it off for me. He stopped shipping to Europe with the following statement:

We comply with plant health export and import conditions and can supply health certificates. As in the past we can export to Japan, USA etc with no problems. However a variety of strategies by EU customs have ensured that many parcels are simply not reaching their destination. Removal (and subsequent "loss") of health certificates and invoices by EU customs is the most common practice but revenge for Brexit is taking many forms, some quite imaginative.

Do you really think that is possible? I did not by anything from him since Brexit (he really earned a lot on my panic shopping sprees before), but since some plants are totally exclusive to him, I planned on paying for the extra trouble. I only ever imported with phyto from South Africa before, about 3 years ago, which went smoothly (though my local customs office had to look up the fitting ware types in printed out papers, digital desert Germany).

[David Pilling]

Good that Rare Plants have said this because it will perhaps make improving the situation be taken seriously.

Somewhere there is a business opportunity - anywhere that has honest customs. If your stuff is lost in France, then send it via Ireland.

[Diane Whitehead]

He doesn't even let me look at his website.

I have been getting this message for a couple of years:

Your access to this site has been limited by the site owner
Your access to this service has been limited. (HTTP response code 503)

   Access from your area has been temporarily limited for security reasons.

Diane
in Canada

[David Pilling]

Diane, interesting. The solution is to use a VPN - there are freeibies on the web. Lets you view a website and appear to be in another country.

Here in the UK, there is Google censored by EU law, there are US sites that block access from Europe because they are scared of the EU GDPR laws, there is information that is censored due to UK privacy laws. VPN gets around all this. Although you may not be able to view BBC iPlayer this way.

[Robin Hansen]

This situation(s) with Paul Christian is truly bizarre, especially with Diane in Canada not being able to access the website. I just went to PC's website with no problem (I'm in the US), but to think EU customs is deliberately sabotaging imports, if this is the case, is too much. Have there been any verifiable cases of obstruction?

There must be an end-run around this mess.There's mention of sending to Ireland; what about forwarding from the US?

[Martin Bohnet]

There's mention of sending to Ireland; what about forwarding from the US?

Actually I'm not sure about Ireland - the British often seem to see Northern Ireland (and the channel Islands) as some kind of overseas territory  - technically true, but they put a sound to it like it was as far away as Martinique from France.

I also thought about forwarding, but I'd like to keep it on the continent - 2x across the Atlantic for living plants seems overly risky.

[David Pilling]

I meant Eire (the non-UK part of Ireland), but take your pick of any destination from the UK. I'd guess there are direct routes to Denmark/Netherlands too.

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries that make up the UK. Although it is pretty distant from London, and not much loved by the chattering classes. It has been on the cards for a long time that NI will vote to join the Republic of Ireland (Eire). NI government just tried to stop border inspections of trade to the EU.

Channel Islands are in a different class, a Crown Dependency, and have never been in the EU, they are not part of the UK.

Back in the good old days France had a down on Japanese VCRs and they were all routed through a particularly slow customs site.

[Wylie]

Talking about not being able to see a site, Exbury Nerines is the same way. It uses the excuse that I am not secure, but that only happened since Brexit took effect. Fortunately I panic bought and a lot of unnamed seedlings were included in my last order, so I do have a lot of their nerines which are now going dormant.

[Martin Bohnet]

http://www.nerines.com/ works fine from Germany, and they even seem to have a solution for a rather cheap Phyto by sending all to a relay station in the Netherlands.

I remember I wasn't always happy with their definition of flowering size - of course one can always blame it on the root disturbance with amaryllids...

[Wylie]

Thanks - that link works for me, although I didn't see a difference in the one I was using. The diamond dusting on their nerines is captivating.