Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Galanthus => Topic started by: KentGardener on November 25, 2006, 06:08:26 PM
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Hi All
I don't expect to stand a chance in hell of getting the plant I want, but I noticed that this area had zero topics and zero posts so thought I would start the ball rolling.
I would love to get Galanthus Wasp if anyone ends up with surplus this year.
cheers
John
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here you go. You should attend the Galanthus Gala in Shrewsbury where there will be some for sale. There are places left
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Sorry John, I'd offer if I could but I don't grow 'Wasp'.
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Hi Martin, thanks for the offer if you did have the plant - last year I saw it listed at £30, which is above my personal spending limit - I can't imagine many people will be growing it at that price!
Mark - when is the gala as I can only find details of previous years from doing web searches? Hopefully not the second week in Feb, as in the past years, as I shall be in Madeira then.
regards
John
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John it's the second Saturday in February every year. There is always next year! It moves around England too! Wasp is £30 because it only became available this year. I bought it this year and chipped one but they all failed. It's above ground already
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Do you guys have any idea how many fab crocus you could buy for £30? Or Erythronium..... I hear my husband call out. Or Rhododendron, for that matter, or... or...
I should modify that since "you guys" (John, Martin) do know better (though Mark could shop for Britain) .... I'll start again.... Do some of you folk have no idea how many fab crocus you could buy for £30? Or Erythronium..... I hear my husband call out. Or Rhododendron, for that matter, or... or...
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well, as Adam Ant sang "dont drink, dont smoke, what do you do?". I save hard for things I like or want. Self confessed plantoholic and like we all know it's a drug. If I didnt do bat surveys my spending power would be curbed but I dont spend quite as much as people think. I just have a bad reputation. Just like the book collection in front of me. Quite small compared to someone I know who has quote "30,000" or is it 3000? Like I mentioned elsewhere I need a rich widow!
Photo of books taken just now. Folders on the top right are my slide collection and lectures within. All that wasted money on film! All lectures are now on a memory stick
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wouldnt any Croconut pay £30 if they were offered a corm of Crocus gothenbergensis or one of the fabulous F1 hybrids I heard about
Sorry Ian for lifting one of your images
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Sorry, Mark, I'm being cruel to you... I know you are nothing like as good a shopper as our two dear friends from the south-west of Scotland, L.L. and G. McH., (initials only to spare their blushes).... and then there's A.L. and B.I.....and how could I forget A.N and D. B..... they are unstoppable!!
It is funny that you should illustrate your point with C. x gothenburgensis ... I know that many people find it beautiful, but I prefer its parents ! Mind you, as you know, it's growing in our frames, so it's perhaps easy for me to say that!!
Good luck with you Galanthus Wasp, John... ps... how much does a trip to Madeira cost!!???
I'm feeling poor this evening, you can tell, can't you? Apologies, All, forthe wind up!
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In my experience the more you pay for a crocus the quicker it disappears! And NO I wouldn't pay £30 for any bulb .... if you hang around looking :( long enough someone will take pity on you and offer a swap, even if gift if you've got a really long face ;D AND its not fair, I have to share my 'study' with two children and a musical wife (piano, flute and all those dots.) So please take pity on me and send all your rare spares now ... and no more pictures of enviable desk and shelves rooms please. :) :) :)
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Tony says "... and no more pictures of enviable desk and shelves rooms please" said room is my bedroom, photo library, computer room, seed collection room, shoe storage ....
I feel a red face coming on now I've seen the photo on line
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Hi All
so many replies.
Mark - can I ask - if you paid £30 for one and chipped it and they all failed - and now it is above ground already. Does this mean that you spent £60 on wasp bulbs
Maggi - Madeira is costing £500 - but I am presently at the young age of thirty nine and three quarters - so I am sure you will understand why I need a nice holiday next year to take my mind off something I can't quite bring myself to mention...
Mark - I loved the second 'enviable desk and shelves room" picture - shows how much carefully framing a photo can do. I must ask though - why the glass heads? Unless you collect wigs you are wasting valuable bookshelf space. (I personally will never have too many plant books).
cheers
John
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well.. one is a glass head on which my head phones usually sit. The other is a plasma globe
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Mark, I also love Crocus x gotenbergensis, but like Tony I would NEVER sell 30 pounds for any corm!!!!
The most expensive I've ever bought was Crocus mathewii for 10 Euro, but this was on top of my wishlist!
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If someone really wants an item they will pay for it eg my Dianthus 'Constance Finnis' sold for 24 Euro and it was a cutting taken in September. One bulb of Galanthus 'Diggory' sold at an auction this February for £80 over three times it's price because the person who bought it could never get it from lists. Look at the Narcissus world. Some of their bulbs are £100 and over. I'm sure there are secret buyers in here but they dont want to say.
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I would admit to a mild dose of croconutitis but think that C. x gotenbergensis is 'orrible and wouldn't give £3 for a bag of 20!!!! I dont like 'tricolor' either although Carol does and there are some in the garden.
As for C. mathewii that is another matter. I sowed some Exchange seed last year and have just noted that three have germinated. 30 Euro eh - sounds good for the retirement ;D.
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Do you guys have any idea how many fab crocus you could buy for £30? Or Erythronium..... I hear my husband call out. Or Rhododendron, for that matter, or... or...
Maggi,
Perhaps I shouldn't mention the $110 Magnolia cultivar I have been eyeing off then? At least the grafted weeping Japanese maple I bought a few months back was on sale at only $70. I wish that we over here could buy things for the tiny prices you guys do over there....... like the Galanthus and Eranthis in trays of 100! <sob!>
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Do you guys have any idea how many fab crocus you could buy for £30? Or Erythronium..... I hear my husband call out. Or Rhododendron, for that matter, or... or...
Two Crocus michelsonii ;)
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wouldnt any Croconut pay £30 if they were offered a corm of Crocus gothenbergensis or one of the fabulous F1 hybrids I heard about.
Cheap at double the price ;D
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Worth every penny, I'm sure.... for the michelsonii !!
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Hi All
just thought I would drag the thread back to my desire to own Galanthus 'wasp'. I guess I should have put that in the subject... - then again maybe not, this way we have had a good varied discussion (from both Galanthus and non Galanthus lovers) on just how blinking expensive some plants are.
A little reminder:...... If anyone has a Galanthus 'wasp' for less than £30 please give me a shout (a lot less than £30 hopefully!... ;)).
cheers
John
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John I can get you a bulb of 'Wasp' but it will be £30 and from the only source I know of. I cant imagine it coming down in price as it only came on the market last year
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Hi Mark
thank you for the offer to be my personal shopper - it really is very much appreciated, and I feel sure that you would manage to source a plant where I would fail.
But,....... I have set myself a spending limit on single bulbs and, as much as I am sorely tempted, must (at this time of mortgages and home creation) stop myself getting sucked into the big spending that seems to be gathering speed on Galanthus bulbs.
I am confident that one day I shall be relaxing in my garden smiling to myself at the beauty of 'wasp' - and am happy to accept the fact that a few years may pass before that time.
with my best wishes and thanks for you helpfulness
John
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maybe I should cut one of mine in half and sell it to you for £15! Only joking though
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Mark - don't you dare go cutting expensive bulbs into bits! You remember what happended the last time!....
I am happy to wait patiently.
John ;D
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hello galanthophiles,
i don't have 'Wasp', i have lots of others which i baught for high prices.
i have many different galanthus , but Mark's collection is al least 10 x larger and unique! (when i see your pictures...;)
But .... i am going to the Galanthus Gala for the first time... and maybe i see you there....
there are double flowered hepatica for 500Euros , and if i had the chance to buy new boxwood varieties for 30 pounds , i would buy them all .
i have to travel a lot to find something new and that's much more expensive.
i have a 200dollar double- flowered Asarum and also my collection of Magnolias took a lot of my 'study'
Wim in Belgium
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see you there Wim!
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Mark, if you ever decide to digitize those slides, this is what I know so far: having them done by a scanning service is really expensive. Scanning them on a document scanner with a slide adaptor gives very poor quality images. Buying a pro quality scanner (like a Nikon Super CoolScan 5000) is very expensive ($1000). Renting a pro scanner is the way to go. I'm getting one next weekend (Friday thru Sunday) for $45. I had them scan a "difficult" slide for me before I rented, and the results were wonderful. These pro machines can do magic, like cancelling dust and scratches.
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Gene what kind of business rents them?
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Gene that sounds like a great idea.
I have never seen a scanned slide that I would be comfortable showing in a talk, they are always inferior to digital pictures.
I have thousands of slides many of which I can not repeat and I would like to use the occasional one in my digital talks so renting a pro-scanner sounds a good option.
I do not think that there is any one in Scotland offering this service so perhaps there is a case for an SRGC scanner that could be rented out to Members.
I will have to look into this and the first step is to see if we can get the quality I require in the final image.
Please let us know how you get on Gene both in the quality of the scans, show us some results on the forum, and the time it takes.
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Book printers have them but my local one is unwilling to scan slides even though we deliver there 5 days a week and they know me
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I will be renting mine at a professional photo supply place. I found it through a long process starting with Google. Scanning the slide is easy, but using the more advanced image enhancement features is not. So I don't recommend this unit for someone who does not get on well with their computer. You will need a USB2 interface. Here is a link to a review of this product:
http://www.bythom.com/coolscanv.htm (http://www.bythom.com/coolscanv.htm)
Here are some specs on the Nikon website:
http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=98&productNr=9238# (http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=98&productNr=9238#)
I will report back on my first-hand encounter with the beast.
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$1000 on Ebay in the US. Are you recommending the Super COOLSCAN 5000 ED? £793 from PC World in the UK
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"Recommend" is too strong a word, since I haven't actually used it yet. The 5000ED is the one I will be renting, but Nikon makes a cheaper one (see the Nikon link in my previous email). I've never used either, so I can't compare them. I only know this: I scanned a slide with a lot of dark areas on it, first using my HP ScanJet document scanner with the slide adaptor, and the result was horrible. I then had the photo shop guy scan the slide with the 5000ED, and I was amazed by how beautiful the image looked on the monitor. It could pick out detail in the dark areas that the HP couldn't see at all. So it isn't just a resolution thing; it also has to do with resolving slightly different density levels. That's all I can say at the moment.
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I await your review.
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With regard to 'first flowering bulbs', we came back from holiday a couple of weeks ago to find a pot of Ipheion uniflorum (probably Alberto Castillo as it seems a bit large for Album) with a flower open. The pot was outside but I brought it into the greenhouse to apppreciate its flower and today note that it has put several more buds up.
The bulbs were rescued from the garden during a bit of serious tidy up last summer and just dumped in a pot outside until a new home could be found for them. They are still waiting but maybe I should keep some in a pot in the greenhouse for future years.
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Hi All
I have just changed the main heading for this thread as I realised that 'the first....' was starting to cause confusion for any that were not aware of why it was started.
Hopefully I shall be able to close this thread to further replies in a few months time if the very kind offer of a 'wasp' bulb comes to fulfilment. ;)
regards
John
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Thank you SRGC.
I am now the proud owner of a Galanthus Wasp thanks to a very kind member of this forum.
It wouldn't have happened without the SRGC forum.
kind regards from a very happy Johnie ;D
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Excellent, John! It is heartening to hear of forumists who are coming together in this way to exchange plants. I hope you and your Wasp will be very happy together!
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Well done John. I had heard that Wasp was going to be on offer at the snowdrop gala at Cambo, but that was a myth :(
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Anthony, anything interesting there?
That's good news and very good for someone to part with Wasp.
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Congratulations John
Always the best way to acquire a plant and fond memories of those who give them. I hope it thrives ;D
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Just found this. I didn't go Mark but Ian Christie informed me that 'Wasp' was not available. I'll keep my eyes and ears open though.