Introducing Mr Garak

Garak garak@code-garak.de
Sun, 28 Jun 2015 15:59:14 PDT
Hi PBS-Members,

as the welcome mail to the list sugests, I'd like to introduce myself: 
My name is Martin Bohnet, though in most of my internet activities I use 
the name Garak or pmmGarak, hence the title.. I've got a degree in 
chemical engineering and earn my living in the automotive industry, so 
I'm strictly an amateur in gardening and botanics. I live near Stuttgart 
in southern Germany. Most maps list the area as zone 7a, though central 
europe has tricky winters for geophytes, as cold and dry continental 
spells alternate with mild an wet atlantic ones, and a closed snow cover 
is a rare thing, so winter hardiness or methods of hibernating is a 
tricky multidimensional thing for me.

in my youth I've loved to experiment with the most unusual  bulbs 
available in local stores - which was rather limited to Tigridia 
Pavonia, Nerine Bowdenii und Eucomis bicolor back in then 90ies . After 
finally obtaining a garden of my own, I came across some Tigridia 
Vanhouttei seeds on Ebay last year. I always thought growing bulbs from 
seed was too much effort, but those started well, and I think I'm hooked 
now, even though those T. Vanhouttei will likely need another year to 
flower. This year I've entered an exploring phase after finding several 
internet sources of things any local garden center has never dreamed of, 
and your Wiki was an invaluable source of information. Right now I've 
got seedlings of several gladiolus and tigridia species, Eucomis pole 
evansii, Cypella Herbertii, Arum Nigrum, Allium Obliquum... latest thing 
to sow has been brunsvigia grandiflora. Obviously, this will result in 
many questions, that's why I've decided to join this list.

  I'm yet unsure if I should become a paying member of the PBS, as I 
don't know how much exchange of bulbs or tubers will be possible across 
the continents, or how many members in the EU exist. Then again, I think 
that many of the failing experiments (e.g. too many of the African 
gladiolus, Kniphofia Albescens, Eucomis Vandermerwei...) were a result 
of too old seeds with these low volume products, so exchanging seeds 
(which don't need the phytosaniwhatever certificate if I remember 
correctly) with people who actually care may help a lot.

I hope I didn't bore you too much with this lengthy introduction!

Greetings from Germany!

Martin

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin Bohnet, Göppingen near Stuttgart, Germany, Zone 7a
_______________________________________________
pbs mailing list
pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/


More information about the pbs mailing list