Just a quick reply to Rodger, the young whipper-snapper guy. hehe,love it. I for one spent seven years doing my Apprentice-ship. As a propagator, and still have not learnt as much as i would like to know. That was in the early 60s and i am now 58. My favorite saying to one of the younger ones that tell me how to do my job is. "I have forgotten more than you will ever learn and when you learn, what i have forgotten then you can tell me how to do my Job". And i do believe that plant groups are loosing ground these days, because its not fast enough to show results. Plants take time , care, and a lot of patience's, which there is not much left in this wonderful World of ours. Well my two pennies worth . and now i will go back to my lurking on PBS site. :) Cheers Kiyel. Kiyel Boland In Sunny Napier. New Zealand. http;//http://www.savagegardenz.co.nz/ http://public.fotki.com/savagegardenz/ On 29/07/2009, at 12:44 PM, totototo@telus.net wrote: > On 28 Jul 2009, at 15:18, Robert Pries wrote: > >> plant societies are appearing to be on the way out if you look at >> membership. >> If their members are not a bit more generous in welcoming the less >> informed >> they can soon be talking to the wall. > > The malaise is much more deeply rooted than that. We live in a > society centered > on immediate gratification and gardening is NOT that. It takes time > and EFFORT > and sticktoitiveness to learn the ins and outs of any one branch of > horticulture, and that's precisely what the younger generation isn't > willing to > supply. > > Modern uninformed types want knowledge and expertise handed to them > on a silver > platter, want to be spoonfed what others only learned by paying > close attention > for decades, but that's not the way you learn to grow plants or > arrange a > garden. You learn those by getting your hands dirty, making lots of > mistakes, > and killing lots of plants in the process. > > Another element in the gradual decline of gardening societies is that > gardening, as a hobby, has a great deal more competition these days > than it did > when we old fossils were first hatched from pterodactyl eggs. Why go > out and > spray the aphids when you can be self-actualizing in the nearest > mall or big > box store, or finding enlightenment at the foot of your latest guru? > > Even if they go hiking in the mountains, they pay next to no > attention to the > floral beauties they pass. > > > The Master Gardener program has been mentioned in passing. Perhaps > it's a > heresy that will lead to me being burnt as part of an enormous > horticultural > auto da fe, but I think that program is a con, a fake, a scam. All > it teaches > is how to look something up in books! Those who emerge from the > progam tend to > think "now I know everything" when in fact they should emerge with a > sense of > how little they know. > > > Harumph! Young whipper-snappers! > > > -- > Rodger Whitlock > Victoria, British Columbia, Canada > Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate > on beautiful Vancouver Island > > http://maps.google.ca/maps/… > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/