As Lee notes, he has no time but is reluctant to throw out good seed. Given that Jan at the seed exchange is on a steady course for twice a year mailings, I'd say send her what you have and assume some will germinate. Very few of us want 20 or a 100 seedlings anyway. For the few that germinate instantly, those can be left to individual exchanges. The days of simple exchanges are no more. Back when Del was doing it, he was busy but not the way our exchange people are now. We've complicated their lives with spreadsheets and stamps.com and much increased orders so that it can take days to do one bulb or seed exchange. Oh, and don't forget all the bookkeeping Arnold does as a result. I myself ship bare-root plants from September to April. I have to enter orders, pull plants, depot them, pack them, box them, seal the boxes and drive 16 miles to UPS. For a wholesale order for one Portland nursery who wants 40 of this and 40 of that and a few of 10 other types, that can sometimes take up to two days with interruptions. So when Jan and Bridget are inundated by our very generous members this becomes far more time-consuming than a day or two. But, there's this - PBS is evolving, flexing with the needs of membership, improving our services to members and these changes take time but I stand back and look at even five years ago, and we're moving along. It just takes time and you cannot imagine how much I appreciate the patience of our members and the help they have provided and continue to provide as we move on. So, there's a solution - we just haven't worked all the way through yet. In the meantime, cleaning and storing seed properly goes a long way towards viability for the end recipient. As an example, I had seed of Mimulus lewisii from 2012, stored all this time in a fridge in paper packets in a sealed container. This is a native perennial and the seed is pretty much dust. It germinated this spring. Just one, mind you, but how many do I really need? It looks great and I'm being careful... So for those like Lee and others, send the seed to Jan - unless it's germinating - at the proper times as she requests, and let's see how it goes. Your feedback will be essential, since this is a bit of an experiment. Keep up the good work! Robin Hansen President, PBS _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> PBS Forum https://…