SRGC 73rd Seed Exchange (2019-2020)

[sippa]

I received my main order of seed yesterday.  Thank you all for your good work.

Marianne

[Shadylanejewel]

The big but in this is that Seattle APHIS confiscated fourteen! packets of seed because they supposedly had an "unknown fungus" on them.
I'd like to know if other US inspection stations are as ruthless.  I may need to change my inspection station.

Jan

A friend of mine in Washington State also had seed confiscated and destroyed by the Seattle APHIS office due to "seed contaminated with unknown fungi".  He is not the same friend as Jan as his seeds were; celmisia, roscoea, pachystegia, ozothamnus, brachyalottis, buddleja sp, angelica, dierama and romarea. He receive 6 out of 16 packets of seed.

I'll be very interested to know if your seeds make it to you Jan.

[Jan Jeddeloh]

Marianne, I'd be very interested to know if your order had any seeds confiscated.  I'm not feeling hopeful about my order.

Jan

[sippa]

Jan I received all my seed nothing confiscated.  I have used Linden in New Jersey for many years and all my seed have arrived safely from many sources.

[Jan Jeddeloh]

I got an email this morning from Joyce Fingerhut NARGS Seed Wrangler Extraodinaire about Seattle APHIS confiscating seed for "unknown fungus".  It's been happening with seed from the AGS and Cyclamen Society and no doubt other groups too.  Joyce is trying to get to the bottom of the problem.  It would be really helpful if folks with confiscated seed could email Joyce alpinegarden@comcast.net with their permit number and a list of confiscated seed. 

If anyone can figure out the problem it's Joyce.  We all owe her a big debt of gratitude for all she does to keep seed flowing.

As for me I'm still waiting for seed. 

[Maggi Young]

Must  agree with you  there, Jan - Joyce  Fingerut is  a  star  for the  Seed Exchanges  - one  of the  reasons she  was  made  an Honorary  SRGC Member!

[Diane Whitehead]

Those seeds just aren't making it over the Rocky Mountains

AGS seeds, which came before Christmas, are growing already.  And NARGS seeds arrived yesterday.

Diane

[vanozzi]

Received my main order this morning here in Western Australia. Exciting, as I'm starting from scratch again, in a new state with a very different climate.Many thanks to all the wonderful people involved in the seed exchange.

[Carolyn]

On behalf of the Seed Team I would like to apologise to any members who have had to pay excess postage for their seed packets. We had a big problem with the franking machine this year and had to wait for over a week for a new one to arrive. In the meantime we had built up a huge pile of orders ready to post and decided to buy stamps for some of the orders. When we use the franking machine, each envelope is weighed before franking, so the correct postage is automatically applied. I think a problem has arisen when people ordered heavy seeds (paeony, etc) or large surplus orders. We are very sorry about this - we were keen for you to get your seeds as soon as possible.

[GordonT]

I am hoping seed arrives today or tomorrow. You never know what the issues are with postal delivery systems, when friends tow hours away have had their orders for a week or more...

[wooden shoe]

I finally received main and surplus order today in the Netherlands. It took 21 days to go 715 km (445 miles). That is an average speed of 1.4 km per hour. Even if the mail uses paddle boats to cross the North Sea, that is very slow....
But thanks for everyone who made the Seed Exchange possible.

[bibliofloris]

My main order arrived yesterday, also through the Seattle USDA inspection station. I received all of my seeds, with no notes of any issues. (Most of mine were bulb seeds, fyi.) Fingers crossed the surplus seeds make it to me as well!

Thanks, as always, to everyone who donated, and to everyone who volunteered on this effort! I truly appreciate it.
--Kelly

[sippa]

I received my surplus seed yesterday.  Again thanks to all involved.

Marianne

[Diane Whitehead]

Those of us on the Pacific coast of both Canada and the U.S. started to receive our seeds two days ago.

[Tristan_He]

On behalf of the Seed Team I would like to apologise to any members who have had to pay excess postage for their seed packets. We had a big problem with the franking machine this year and had to wait for over a week for a new one to arrive. In the meantime we had built up a huge pile of orders ready to post and decided to buy stamps for some of the orders. When we use the franking machine, each envelope is weighed before franking, so the correct postage is automatically applied. I think a problem has arisen when people ordered heavy seeds (paeony, etc) or large surplus orders. We are very sorry about this - we were keen for you to get your seeds as soon as possible.

Best £1.50 I ever spent Carolyn! No complaints from me  And sending the seeds early was the right decision, I have quite a few short-lived and bulb seeds in my order which need sowing asap.

Thanks so much to everybody in the seed team for all your hard work, I have had so many fabulous and hard to obtain plants via this route.

Tristan