In memory of Stan Farwig
Mary Sue Ittner (Thu, 30 Oct 2003 16:47:06 PST)

Dear All,

This week I received my copy of Mariposa, the newsletter of the Calochortus
Society. In it I read that Stan Farwig had died August 6th at the age of
74. I have written about Stan before. He and his late partner, Vic Girard,
grew bulbs for a number of years in their back yard in Concord, California.
They were particularly interested in Calochortus and bulbs of the southern
hemisphere. They traveled, gathered seeds, studied what others had written,
and learned from their own experience. Both gave lectures and I was
fortunate to hear them both and their enthusiasm and splendid photographs
were instrumental in igniting a passion in me for bulbs. It saddened me to
learn that in 1990 when we had extremely cold weather in California they
had lost most of their "tender" bulb collection (Calochortus survived).
They never had the heart to start over after that as so much of their
collection had been grown from seed.

When I heard Stan talk at a Symposium in Berkeley in September 1989
sponsored by the Friends of the University of California Botanical Garden,
he passed out a hand out entitled, "A Non-Concise Guide to the Cultivation
of Bulbs." My copy is well worn as I have reread it so many times. I have
also shared it with others after Stan gave me permission to do that. He was
always willing to provide information and encouragement. In that way he is
very much like Gordon Summerfield who so kindly shared his recent talk with
this group. It occurred to me that I could share this wisdom of Stan's with
everyone by adding his words to the wiki. I think he would have liked
that. So I scanned in my worn paper and hopefully have corrected all the
words that the software couldn't quite figure out. If you see any glaring
mistakes (I didn't change any of his words or punctuation) let me know.

I think that this paper complements Gordon's words and also is very
relevant to our current topic of the week and to our recent posts about
Daubenya as well. Perhaps it speaks to me especially as I am always
curious, always full of questions and I can relate very much to his words
in the beginning, "The more I grow, the less I know." As the title
suggests, this is not a quick read, but a fascinating one and I think well
worth the time for anyone who is really interested in growing bulbs. I
suggest you print it out as you too may want to read it again some day.

http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/…

Mary Sue