YES!!! The "I'm so happy" thread. 2009

[Anthony Darby]

Maggi,

I must compliment you on two fronts immediately. The article is excellent, a true representation of the SRGC and due praise for the work yourself and Ian do for the club.

Secondly, you look very well in the photograph.

Paddy

I never thought of Maggi having two fronts.

[Maggi Young]

I suppose the logical follow on to my last post is this: A plea to those of you reading this who are not fully paid up members of the Scottish Rock Garden Club, but who nevertheless are able to search these pages and benefit from them, to seriously consider joining the SRGC....  it is easily achieved online, see here: http://www.srgc.org.uk/member/member.html  

As part of the remit ot the SRGC to encourage the interest in  and knowledge of rock garden plants, the website and forum is (with the exception of a tiny area only for registered forum members) open to all to read, enjoy, register and contribute to the Forum.
Provision of this facility  does not happen by magic, however, it takes effort, and, as with most things, certain amounts of cold hard cash! While the costs of hosting the website and forum, (the payments for bandwidth and so on) are minuscule in comparison to the costs of producing the Journal  (and capable of reaching far larger numbers, it must be said! they are still costs which must be met by the SRGC.
It is testament to the regard  in which the website is held , both as a plant  resource and as a networking arena, that the likes of Luit Van Delft donated  surplus bulbs to be sold from Cees Breed's Connoisseur Collection to make a gift to the Club in thanks for its existence.
Such individual generosity is both touching and very gratefully received by the Club. I would like to urge all  of you who  appreciate this website and Forum to give thought to how, very simply, you might easlily help to support its future.... Join the SRGC.... you will not only have the satisfaction of knowing you are contributing to the upkeep of this place, but also you will receive the super twice yearly journal, be eligible to take part in the seed exchange, have free entry to all SRGC Shows, the chance to become a member of a local Group for those of you in the UK .....goodness me.... how could you resist?

[Paul T]

While the rest of you are cooing over a successfully propagated specimen of Homo sapiens, I'm cooing over a self-sown plant of Cyclamen libanoticum. I must be doing something right if this species is self-sown!

Just a couple of leaves, but it's put itself in a site I wouldn't have planted it in, right next to my front walk. Probably too young to flower, but in a couple of years...pow!

Rodger,

Should I not mention that for me they are actually starting to become a bit of a weed in one part of my garden?  I get LOTS of seedlings there.  That reminds me, I was going to send some seedlings to people last year and never did.  Must look up who I promised them to.... I think it was Thomas and Kathrine (from Budapest).  I have to remove some seedlings soon, as there are young ones all over the place. 

Maggi,

Well done on the advertising front!! 

[David Shaw]

Whilst a large block of members are both terrestrial and virtual members of the SRGC I believe that many are just one or the other. In our local group, Highland, quite a number of members do not have email and don't want it. And they include 'younger' members as well as crumblies. If this is representative across the whole of the SRGC then a lot of terrestrials will never see the web site.
By the way, Maggie, that is a great article, well done.

[Anthony Darby]

Whilst a large block of members are both terrestrial and virtual members of the SRGC I believe that many are just one or the other. In our local group, Highland, quite a number of members do not have email and don't want it. And they include 'younger' members as well as crumblies. If this is representative across the whole of the SRGC then a lot of terrestrials will never see the web site.
By the way, Maggie, that is a great article, well done.

David, at what age does one progress from 'wrinkly' to 'crumbly'? I remember when I was at school 40 years ago my Latin teacher's nickname was 'Prune'. In the years before his retiral in the late 1980s it had changed to 'Flakey'.

[Maggi Young]

Hmm, perhaps there is a case for a commission of SRGC moisturising cream, also?

David's expression of the "non-internet" feeling in his Group is interesting. In Aberdeen, though there seems a reluctance on the part of some to offer their email address for ease of communication, a poll at various meetings over the years shows that a very large number do have internet access and use it to access the forum..... this is repeated in other places where Ian has asked the question about internet useage.
I think the question of age amongst users of the internet is spurious.... in my experience there is considerable enthusiam for the internet among the "more mature" folks of my aquaintance!
I find it amusing when some younger folk say that they have to use computers at work and so don't want to be using them at home, too.  Doesn't seem to stop them buying stuff ! And isn't that attitude a rather like an academic saying they use books all the time in their work, so they don't read books in their private life?!!
Of course there will always be people who prefer not to take advantage of certain technology...and that is their right.... for myself, I don't drive a car, but I do not poo-poo those who do.... and it is that attitude, of dismissing the value of the internet, which saddens me.  I strongly believe that, without the vigour that the website and forum bring to the SRGC and contribute to the feeling of inclusion for all members, that the number of "pure terrestrials" would find that in times to come, there would not be enough of them to sustain the "land-based" activities of the Club....and that would be tragic.

[ranunculus]

I, for one, enjoy all aspects of SRGC membership in equal measure, but I enjoy the forum best!!!   

[Ragged Robin]

This is the first forum have joined and contributed to and now would not be without    However, I do remember feeling distinctly wary of giving my details and whereabouts at the beginning as we all know that information on the internet is in the public domain.  Now Google is asking us to act on our own behalf to make what privacy amendments we feel are necessary as the UK Government has made it clear that they are delighted with all the work they have done to help make our personal information and whereabouts easily accessible to them. In the end therefore it is up to us as individuals to protect our own privacy and find a way to still enjoy sharing information in an uncompromising way 

[ranunculus]

This accentuates one of the problems of becoming an officer, committee member, representative or contact for any organisation, society or club.  Potential members need as many contact details as possible (to accommodate all forms of enquiry), but the release of this information puts it directly into the public domain.

[David Shaw]

The use of terms for age groups is very personal. I would say that I am moving from Grumpy into Crumbly, the next stage being a 'M old B' and looking forward to that!
Internet usage is very variable across the club. I can think of at least one council member and two group conveners who do not use the internet. Obviously, 100% of forumists do use it.

[Maggi Young]

As regards privacy in the Forum: one is at liberty to hide one's email address from view  and to reveal only as much information as one wishes in the public areas of the Forum. I must say, however, that I personally prefer to converse with a person's name, even if assumed, than to address someone as "Tabletop" .... but then, as I 've admitted before, I'm rather old-fashioned by nature!

I do realise that internet searches can reveal all sorts of things about people..... but then again, so can a search of a regular, paper, phone book or electoral roll....... and perhaps more useful things in the area of public privacy  protection than "I'm Solange from Wisconsin, I like to grow Sorbus".......

The percentage of Club "officials" who do not use email is pretty small. There are those who do, but who guard the fact like the code to a gold vault ! 

Certainly in Aberdeen, we are still able to access the interent, FREE, in any local Library..... I am not aware if this is the case throughout the UK ?

[maggiepie]

Maggi, if a person doesn't want to give out their personal email they only have to get a gmail or other free web based email account and use that for their subscriptions.
It also helps to have one in case of hard drive crashes so you still have all your accounts accessible.
I have noticed that ( some) people who don't like to give our their email addresses are often the same people who forward unwanted mail to their entire address book and by the time it gets to you, there are a dozen forwarded mails all complete with a zillion email addresses.
I'm sure I am not the only one who has experienced this.

This is the absolute best forum I have ever been part of and it is the 'only' way for me and others like me who aren't lucky enough to live in Scotland to be part of SRGC in a meaningful way.
We may not be able to go to the shows and lectures etc but we can drool over the wonderful pics that are posted from these shows as well as the pics from people's own gardens  .
Plus we get to meet  all the great forumists and be entertained daily as well as educated.
I know the forum has enriched my life in so many ways.

[Lesley Cox]

It has all been said already but I too, think it was a wonderful article Maggi and you are to be commended for taking the opportunity offered, to promote the Club. So often it's easiest not to bother. I thinks it's right that in the furure such groups will be unsustainable without Internet, especially on an international scale and even on a local basis, groups such as my own local Alpine Garden Group are very close to recession. I am the least technological of people yet have embraced email as a means of communication and those without it, and to whom I owe letters, tend to be badly neglected. Entirely my fault, not theirs but it tells the story.

If there are young adults now who choose not to use computers after office hours, it is unlikely there will be in the near future with every classroom having a computer for each student, even at the very youngest age of schooling. In my very youngest days cars were not for everyone and my mother's generation were almost without them altogether but precious few of us could manage without one now.

[Rodger Whitlock]

More anent Cyclamen libanoticum. The rains have stopped for today and it's sunny, so I've been out raking up leaves off my driveway. (Leaves dropped by Quercus robur, Alnus rubra, and Populus tremuloides.)

As I was working near the specimen of Picea glauca 'Alberta Blue' which is underplanted with cyclamen, including C. libanoticum, I bethought myself to see if there were any self-sown seedlings in amongst the mature plants. Indeed there were! Out came my special trowel and a kneeling pad, and with much greater care and attention than usual, I lifted 30 to 40 seedlings, some still in the seed pearl stage, others two or three years old (at a guess), but all with a single leaf. I've replanted them away from the parents, about half being used to extend the parent planting, the other half placed near the self-sown seedling a couple of meters away about which I crowed the other day.

A few moments to water them in and they're good. My experience with cyclamen is that they are best transplanted just as they are coming into growth. I am reasonably optimistic that the majority of the transplants will survive.

My parent planting has always been something of a disappointment because Eranthis hyemalis had gotten into it, and the lush growth of the eranthis about the time the cyclamen came into flower meant you simply couldn't see the gorgeous flesh-pink flowers of the cyclamen. The last couple of years, I've been methodically lifting and moving all eranthis that flower among the C. libanoticum, using them elsewhere in the garden where their prolific seeding will not be a problem. I wonder if the reason I am getting cyclamen seedlings now is because they no longer have to compete with the eranthis.

At any rate, I'm s-o-o-o-o-o happy! Tra la la! <wanders off snapping fingers and clicking heels together>

[Maggi Young]

Happy day, Rodger, hurrah!  ...... it would bring considerable delight here if we were a)  able to grow C. libanoticum outside and b) to have it self seeding......