Pollenatrix

Seedy news

Seeds of Diversity is an organization dedicated to the saving and trading of heritage seeds among gardeners in Canada. Even though I live in Germany, I still enjoy their newsletter, and look forward to the day I can participate.

The latest newsletter contains some very interesting facts about the prevalence of heritage varieties in modern Canadian gardens.

During 2004 and early 2005, Seeds of Diversity indexed the contents of 41 Canadian mail-order garden seed catalogues. These included more than 75 species of fruits and vegetables, and over 3250 named cultivars. The complete list is available on our web site at http://www.seeds.ca/hpd/csci.php. Besides assisting gardeners to locate specific varieties ( our office receives hundreds of questions about this every year), this index has enormous importance in measuring the status of horticultural biodiversity in Canada...

Gardeners can get a lot of good vegetable varieties from Canadian seed companies. There are about five times more garden seed vendors in the U.S. than there are in Canada, but our domestic companies offer 55% of the varieties that are available in both countries combined. For instance, Canadian companies supply 626 varieties of tomatoes according to our current CSCI index. The Seed Savers Exchange in the U.S. lists 915 tomato varieties from all garden seed companies in Canada and the U.S. combined. More than two-thirds of all tomato varieties sold are available from Canadians!

The bad news is that most of the 3250+ varieties sold in Canada are extremely rare and in danger of dropping out of commerce completely. Only 5.3% of all varieties are available from more than five companies, out of the 41 that we have indexed.

Check out the results of their Canadian seed catalogue inventory here.

Orchid Conservation Forum

If you're an orchid lover, here's a link that you should should definitely check out: The Phytosophy Forum

It's a new discussion list, with a very worthwhile philosophy:

We, horticulturists, scientists, and lovers of flowering plants, and particularly those of the orchid family, believing that more active measures should be taken by those interested in advancing the conservation and culture of plants, and to secure for them the appreciation to which they are entitled, do hereby associate ourselves together for the purpose of aiding in every possible way the conservation, trade, and improvement by cultivation and breeding; the influence by debate, lobby, lecture, and publications of useful information concerning plants, and the extension of knowledge, production, propagation, and habitat preservation of these plants.

Another reason to visit: The photo gallery contains an amazing collection of photos of different varieties of Thelmytras (an Australian orchid species).

Puppy love

I just love this little fella... I passed him as I was walking along the sidewalk of Killarney, Ireland over the Easter weekend.  Too cute!

The de-beaking got me

I couldn't watch it all -- and not just because of the sight of Pamela Anderson's collagen-injected lips and her bouncing silicon boobs.

Kentucky Fried Cruelty

Sorry Mike.

Be anything but "Municipal"

Uh oh... hold your trowels. The Brits have declared the hanging basket out of style, condemning them as the "white stilettos of the gardening world", "a bit naff", and (most damning of all) "municipal".

"...tastes have become more sophisticated with a move from head-level baskets to troughs and Italian-style pots at ground level - a trend triggered by baskets' tendency to deteriorate fast if neglected."

Who can keep up?

Aye Calypso

Check out this gorgeous photo of Calypso Bulbosa at the "Botany Photo of the Day" site.

It brings back fond memories of my futile search for this elusive little beauty on the Bruce Peninsula during last year's Orchid Festival. This year's festival is from May 27 - 29th for those of you lucky enough to be in the vicinity of Tobermory, Ontario at that time.

It makes me want to break into song.

Aye Calypso the places you've been to,
the things that you've shown us,
the stories you tell...

Something smells, and it's not an orchid

A new "Orchid Thief" has emerged from the bowels of eBay to be arrested for selling endangered species. Strangely enough, the plants were stolen from exactly the same park that John Laroche, the original "Orchid Thief" from the novel and movie "Adaptation", did his poaching.

While I'm happy that eBay is minus at least one orchid poacher, I'm even more delighted by the way these kind of stories draw out journalism's hidden drama queens:

Scent Of Orchids Started Hobbyist's Descent Into Poaching

Gary Bienemann fell into the tender trap of orchid obsession the same way many enthusiasts do.

The Clearwater resident took up orchids as a hobby, buying them at home supply stores starting about four years ago. At some point, Bienemann told state investigators, the flower's addictive power pushed him over the line from hobbyist to poacher...

..."To desire orchids is to have a desire that can never be fully requited,'' said author Susan Orlean in the New Yorker article upon which her book "The Orchid Thief'' was based....

Delicious.

Or how about this headline:

Man finds flower's power arresting

The affair began innocently enough, with trips to Home Depot and Lowe's. Soon, Gary Bienemann was obsessed.

For an orchid, it seemed, he would do anything.

Even the normally prosaic Harold Koopowitch got into the spirit of things:

"it's almost like a new universe and when you fall into it, you get ensnared. They're big and they're gaudy and gorgeous."

(cue the CNN music):

Boom boom boom boom. Orchid hobbyists gone bad. It could happen to you.

Then someone practical had to pipe up and spoil the mood:

"This man's biggest problem probably was stupidity. He did it on eBay," said Paul Martin Brown, author of Wild Orchids of Florida. "I'm delighted someone has been caught. This goes on far too often."