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What a wonderful month for
flowers! Rebutias, Sulcos
and Lobivia have been a blaze of colour. My Echinocereus coccineus v. inermus, which I
bought from Jumanery about fifteen or more years ago, flowered
for the first time – the flowers were so lovely that they were well
worth waiting that long for. Gasteria
and Aloes are still putting on a good display, one of the Aloes has
hardly been out of flower since Christmas.
The Bristol Show on May 17th was very good this year
with plenty of lovely plants on show.
Maurice and I entered a number of classes and came away with a
pile of prize cards between us.
After we staged our plants in Bristol we drove across to Newport
to visit the South Wales Branch Show.
They also had some lovely plants – in particular some excellent
Cerei. We arrived back in
Bristol early in the afternoon to check up on the judging, enjoy
chatting with other enthusiasts, and collect our plants at the end of
the afternoon.
On Sunday, June the 1st, I joined a coach load of
members from the Bristol Branch who were visiting Wisley, for the Cactus
Weekend. There were some
lovely plants in the BCSS display and on the Sales tables but I was a
bit disappointed with the cacti and succulent plants in the greenhouses.
The standard of cultivation was not brilliant.
I think we forget how much expertise is actually involved in
growing our plants well, and how they show that they are suffering if
they are neglected. George
Hollis gave them some advice on how it should be done so maybe when we
next visit there will be some signs of improvement.
George sends his love to all and looks forward to seeing us next
month to show us his Lithops and tell us how he grows them. I hope you are getting your plants ready for our Show in August. Some of our big exhibitors will be on holidays on that day so we will really need your plants to help to put on a good show for the public. I am always disappointed how few people enter plants in the Novice Classes. This is a very good way of getting the confidence to start to show plants. Any mature plant that is well grown and in good condition is worth showing. Nobody will look down on you if your plant does not win a prize. It is the plants that don’t win that make a show just as much as the plants that do. Cactus Mart 21st
June
Preparations for the Cactus Mart are well under way.
I hope all of you will visit the Mart.
With so many top nurseries represented this will be an excellent
opportunity to obtain all those rare plants you have been looking for.
If want a special plant you can always contact some of the
nurseries beforehand and ask them to bring it along for you.
Will you please sign the list on the table or speak to me if you
are able to come to the hall between 8.00am and 10.00 to help nurseries
to load and unload plants, to sell plants at the Branch table, to serve
teas to the nursery representatives etc. or the help clear up at the end
of the day. . If you have a
trolley which could carry trays of plants and can bring this along for
the day it would be a great help. The more helpers we have for each job
the more free time helpers can have to look at plants, to buy them, and
to chat to visiting enthusiasts If you have plants you would like to sell, bring them along to the Branch Sales table before 10.00 am. They should be correctly labeled and should contain a second label with your name on it and the price of the plant. When the plant is sold the price label is removed and is used to calculate how much money is due to each seller. 10% of the sale price will go to the Branch. Prices should be comparable with nursery prices. It would be unfair if we ask nurseries to pay for their tables and then undercut their prices. The more common and cheaper plants, which will appeal to the general public, rather than to the specialist grower, are best kept for sale at our show when we will also have a Branch Sales Table.
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