Diane . I like your questions and musings. Thanks Original Message ----- From: "Diane Whitehead" <voltaire@islandnet.com> To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 6:08 PM Subject: Re: [pbs] club members was Big Government >I have wondered about the non-involvement of different cultural groups > in our ornamental plant clubs. It is very strange to attend a plant > convention in an area of Vancouver where 60% of the residents are > Asian, and see only a couple of Asian attendees. > > However, joining clubs might be a strange thing to do. Why aren't we > focussing on our families? Why aren't we spending all our spare time > actually gardening instead of sitting around talking about it? > > I thought that maybe alpine plant growers might come from countries > with mountains. Do we have a disproportionate number of descendants > of Swiss and Austrians in NARGS? Do the bonsai clubs have Chinese and > Japanese members? In Japan, many girls take flower-arranging classes, > but they buy the flowers on the way in to class. I don't know about > flower-arranging clubs here. > > The people growing vegetables in our allotment gardens are often > fairly-recent immigrants. > > The San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum has an > outreach to various ethnic groups, asking them how they can help with > their needs and interests. It was a while back that I attended a > lecture on what they are doing, so I've forgotten a fair bit. I > remember they have special events for Chinese New Year, including > plant sales of lucky gold-flowered plants. > > > Diane Whitehead > > >> > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/