Contents Volume 17. No 3
Autumn - Winter 2006
| The Cover Picture | |
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Trevor Wray |
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Steve Purr |
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| The Garden of Wales | Ian Priestley |
| More freshly gathered yarns from the world of seeds | Doug Rowland |
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Doug Rowland |
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| The holiday snaps | NN reporters |
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Ian Priestley |
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Roland Tebbenham |
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| Loughborough Diary | Roland Tebbenham |
| Heard at the Convention | Trevor Wray |
| Conventions and Connections | Roland Tebbenham |
| Start 'em young |
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Cover picture: I wrote a filler about the first flowering of my Mammillaria luethyi (lüthyi if you have a posh typewriter but not ‘loathly’ as my spell checker suggests) in 2004 when it had two flowers. You can see that since then it has developed into a little beauty which has been promoted to the front cover. This is a grafted plant but I recently bought one on its own roots which is just ¼ inch. Too small really to tell whether it is still actually alive and unlikely to survive the footfall of Poppy, the family cat, but watch this space! You can click here for a better image.
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EDITORIAL and more..... |
Welcome to the winter edition of Northants News.
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Plant sales We had a pretty busy year ‘pressing the flesh’ as they say. Meeting people at plant fairs or similar, answering their enquiries about our kind of plants and perhaps selling a few of them. Well, lots of them actually. If they buy one for their kids we may have a potential member in ten, twenty years; if they buy some to add to their existing collection we go into top sales mode… ‘Did you know there is a local (very) active branch of the Cactus Society in this area?’ ‘You could come to our annual show. There is no charge and there will be some wonderful plants on display.’ ‘We have our good friend Joe giving the Branch a talk in September about the Sultana Desert. Joe is a brilliant speaker and you will see unbelievable wild cacti and succulents. Would you like details?’ You get the drift. So we were at the Milton Keynes Shopping Mall on a Thursday having booked the Community Desk for the day. We spoke to hundreds of people and yes, some of them were growing our plants. Yes, some of them bought our sales plants, (all at £1 – bought at 50p or donated). And a few will perhaps become members of the BCSS who will get a lifetime of pleasure from growing cacti and succulents. |
This lady came all the way from Jamaica to see our display of cacti at Milton Keynes. (Well she was very pretty and we can kid ourselves. The Ed did joke that if we removed David the picture would be greatly improved.) |
| Right: Ace sales people Jeff and Diana at the Hollowell Steam Rally. Now that was a HOT weekend! | 
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One lady had a son who grew some plants. ‘What kinds did he grow?’ we asked. ‘Well, there’s Handy Andy, Tom Thumb and Hands Up…’ ‘Excellent! I think we have a Boxing Glove plant here somewhere.’ Your editor resolved to never again go to Milton Keynes and to enter a resolution to strike the place from the branch name. The parking is a nightmare! However we did make a lot of friends there – and potential members.
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At Kislingbury Plant Fair we did a roaring trade to our surprise, (it is normally a quiet venue). You will know that we were given a huge collection of Lithops and Jeff had potted some specially for sale there. Could we sell them? Now when we have none everyone asks for ‘stone plants’, when we do have them, no one wants them. We tried our very best to sell them. One youngster had bought plants before ( - we have our ‘regulars’) and the Ed was in full-sales-mode. ‘No, I bought one last year, but it died.’ ‘Oh?’ ‘My little sister knocked it off the windowsill and though I put it back in fresh compost it still died.’ ‘Never mind, we are doing a deal where if you buy a cactus we give you a free stone plant.’ Jeff wouldn’t let me count this as a sale for some reason! These plant sales / recruiting drives are hard work. But a lot of fun! |
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Left: This gentleman was relaxing at Kislingbury before a very important football match. Would he like a cactus for Victoria we wondered. No, well never mind, perhaps another day. |
This edition of the magazine brings you a varied selection. Steve brings you a glowing report of a nursery growing his favourite plants. Doug Rowland (from Bedford) continues his unique insights into the world of trading seeds and there is more from the National Convention. We also feature a report on the E.L.K., a destination that is becoming more popular and perhaps one day someone will tell us what it stands for. Then the middle pages feature our holiday snaps from around the world. Lots more....
We hope you enjoy the magazine and may we be the first to wish you Happy Christmas.
Trev_trevorwray@aol.com
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Back issues of the NMK Branch magazine |
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