TOW N.H.Do in Dec - Seeds
Diane Whitehead (Wed, 03 Dec 2003 23:34:02 PST)

It is a good time to sow bulb seeds.

The various alpine garden societies have extensive offerings of bulb
seeds collected in members' gardens, and many collected in the wild.
The garden seeds vary a bit from year to year, but the real
excitement comes when we see who has been travelling, and where. The
"where" used to be specified: 1500 m alt on Mt. xx. Now the location
is kept secret to protect the plants.

Only members can have the seeds, but you can often check online lists
to see if it would be worthwhile for you to join. Sometimes if you
join now, you can ask for this year's seedlist. Seedlists are
currently being mailed out. These alpine clubs generally include
seeds as a membership benefit, though sometimes members must pay
postage. There are usually close to 6000 types of seeds offered each
year. The number of packets of seed each person is allowed is
limited, and often one does not get all one's first choices. It's
like a lottery. ( After trying for 30 years to get seed of one
particular dwarf narcissus, this year I bought it from the
Archibalds, and it has already germinated.)

Alpine Garden Society http://www.alpinegardensociety.org/
Scottish Rock Garden Club http://www.srgc.org.uk/
North American Rock Garden Society http://www.nargs.org/
Ontario Rock Garden Society http://www.onrockgarden.com/
Alpine Garden Club of BC http://flounder.ca/AlpineGardenClub/

There are specialty geophytic clubs with focussed seed exchanges.
Usually these clubs sell their seeds and there is often no limit to
how many you may buy. It is often easier to get what you really want
from these ones.

Arisaema-L http://botu07.bio.uu.nl/arisaema/aeg.htm

The Cyclamen Society http://www.cyclamen.org/indexCS.html

SIGNA (Species Iris) http://www.signa.org/

The North American Lily Society http://www.lilies.org/
The RHS Lily Group has a new website http://rhslilygroup.org/ Their
seedlist comes out in January and besides lilies includes other
Liliaceae, and other bulbous families

--
Diane Whitehead Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
maritime zone 8
cool mediterranean climate (dry summer, rainy winter - 68 cm annually)
sandy soil