And now for something different......

[Maggi Young]

The latest  issue of the free e-magazine International Rock Gardener (IRG) is introduced here :
 http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=4850.msg363266#msg363266
 and, of course, we hope you enjoy it ....  for Croconuts there is something there that we hope will be very  exciting for you :
details of how YOU can pre-order and be involved in the printing of a new book from Jānis Rukšāns

Full details are in the IRG , as you might imagine .... but  I'll share them here too!
 


Jānis Rukšāns, author and grower, is a world renowned expert on hardy bulbs and no stranger to readers of the IRG or members of SRGC or any of the other horticultural organisations to whom he has delivered lectures over many years.
  Born in Latvia on 5th September 1946, Jānis is about to celebrate his 70th birthday. His interest in gardening started when he was 12. From 1961 to 1966 he studied in gardening college. His diploma work was about alternative products of bees - and nowadays he has 15 bee hives! In 1973 his graduation work from the Latvian Agricultural University was “The Use of Wild Tulip Species in Tulip Breeding”. Later he worked in the National Botanical Garden of Latvia as assistant in the Laboratory of Plant Systematic and Seed Exchange, where he worked on the project “Dendroflora Baltici”. From 1972 he worked at the National Gardening Magazine, at first as editor, but since 1977 as editor in chief. At the end of the nineteen-eighties he was one of leaders of the independence movement which resulted in restoring the Latvian Republic after 50 years of occupation. Since 1991 he headed his own nursery of rare and unusual bulbs, retiring only last year.
 In 1976 his first book was published, with a second edition in 1978. The total number sold reached 100,000 copies and this book was also translated to Lithuanian. In 1981 he wrote the monograph “Crocuses” (in Latvian), where most of crocus cultivars grown at that time are described. In 1979 he was the editor of “Daffodils”, where he wrote sections about growing, breeding, cultivars and plant protection. From 2001 till 2010 he continued to publish; he wrote a new book about daffodils and two books about small bulbs (all in Latvian).

 

His first book in English, “Buried Treasures” was edited in the USA in 2007.  Now in its 2nd edition, it was nominated as one of the 10 best publications by Members of the Latvian Academy of Science in 2007. Australian Gardening Magazine wrote: “Up to now there were two books “needed” for each gardener’s bookshelf, now we have the third - Buried Treasures”.
 In December, 2010 Timber Press edited a new book by Jānis: “Crocuses, A complete Guide to the Genus” – this is a popular book for every gardener where Jānis partly followed the style of the famous E. A. Bowles “Handbook”. He has written many hundreds of articles for gardening periodicals in Latvian, Russian, and English. Every year he lectures in many countries - UK, Sweden, Holland, USA, Canada etc.
 
 He organized his first expedition to Soviet Central Asia in 1975 and since then he has gone almost every year to the mountain districts of former USSR from W. Ukraine to Vladivostok in Far East. In 1982 he discovered new Corydalis species in Tajikistan which later was named in his honour as Corydalis ruksansii by Swedish botanists from Gothenburg Botanical Garden. In 2002 he took part in the first expedition to Turkey organized by Gothenburg B.G. and to date has been going there several times a year. During those expeditions he discovered many new species of bulbous plants. In 2008 he made a month-long trip through the mountains of Iran (resulting in finding some 6 new species, four of them later published) and again visited Iran in 2016, when at least 2 new species of bulbous plants were found.

  Since the 1960s he has worked on bulb breeding. His first tulip variety ‘Lord’s Supper’ was internationally registered in 1982 – at that time it was the only variety from “behind Iron Curtain” to be internationally registered. In 2002 his Tulipa hybrid ‘Girlfriend’ won a diploma in the world exhibition Floriade in Holland. He started a new style of breeding using as one of parents Tulipa vvedenskyi. He raised hundreds of Daffodil cultivars, amongst them the first white multi-flowering split-corona Narcissus ‘Freedom Stars’ (AM 2004, AGM 2007) and some uncommon colour combinations which were most unusual at the time. 
 
  Jānis’ greatest successes came in breeding small bulbs. He raised more than half of all known Corydalis cultivars and now his collection of Corydalis, many of unique colour combinations, is one of the largest in the world. He has raised many new Crocus cultivars several of which are unique, and described more than 30 new Crocus species from Turkey, Iran, Greece and Portugal. At present his Crocus collection exceeds 1500 samples and is the largest in the world but in total his collection of bulbous plants exceeds 5500 samples, all grown by him in his garden.

 

 In 2005 he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Biology from the Latvian Academy of Sciences (Latvijas Zinātņu akadēmija) for his work with plant exploration, introduction of new species to cultivation and plant breeding. He has also received outstanding honours such as the “Three Star Order”, the “Cross of Recognition” and “Prime Minister’s Award” from the Latvian State.
 
  Now Jānis has finished work on the manuscript of a new crocus book - The World of Crocuses. It is a résumé of his 50 years of work with Crocus, his researches on them in the wild and in the garden and it will be dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of Latvian State, which will be celebrated in 2018.
 The new book will include chapters with general information and cultivation of crocuses, their morphology and keys for all species recognised at the moment of completion of the manuscript. The greatest part is dedicated to detailed information of the (in excess of) 230 known species of crocuses with details about their requirements in cultivation according to Jānis’ experience. Almost all species (with very, very few exceptions) are supplied with distribution maps, richly illustrated with pictures from wild and cultivation.
 
 
 Jānis with Dima Zubov

This new book will be more than 500 pages long and will include more than 1500 colour pictures. The species are arranged in alphabetical order, making it easy to find them without special searching by Index. For the front cover a picture of Crocus mawii is used - by way of making link with the first great Monograph about the genus Crocus in1886, by George Maw . The significance of this new book by Jānis has been appreciated by Latvian Academy of Sciences and it will be published by the Academy.
 Publishing costs are quite high and the Latvian Academy is short of finances, so money to cover printing costs must be raised by Jānis himself. He can partly cover those from his savings, but he still is short of 15,000 Euros.
 
 This is where bulb-lovers around the world can become involved in the process of bringing this book, which will surely become a “must-have” reference, to the public by pre-order and donation 
 Jānis is offering:   Everyone who will donate at least 50 Euros (plus postage costs for delivery) for the printing of his Monograph (more will be specially appreciated!) will receive a free copy of book, with the personally addressed signature of author. Everyone who will donate at least 500 Euros will be mentioned in the book’s “Acknowledgments” chapter with full information about donors, according to their wishes and will receive three signed copies without any additional payments. Donations must be received before 1st of February, 2017 when manuscript must be forwarded to be typeset. To receive detailed information about sponsoring the project, please write to Jānis via e-mail:  janis.bulb@hawk.lv
 (It is anticipated that postage costs will be  16 euros within EU and 20 euros for outside Europe)
 
 Please consider getting involved with this project!

We include a few low-resolution pages from the book in the IRG as a sample of what can be expected from the book and  further sample pages are available to download via this link.

[ruben]

Oh YES! Really something to look forward to! I think i will immediatly order my copy :-d!
Well done Janis!

[mark smyth]

I must donate also

[ian mcdonald]

I enjoyed the IRG 80, particularly the article on Proteas and the excellent photos.

[Janis Ruksans]

I must donate also

You are wellcome, Mark!

[Maggi Young]

 Jānis celebrates his birthday today - Many Happy Returns of the Day to "our"  leading "Croconut" !

[Maggi Young]

Good news from Janis that donations and book orders are building well - there is still time for  Crocus lovers to  get involved  with this exciting project - I commend it to you!

[Janis Ruksans]

I found cheeper printing company, so more and more realistic is printing even this year. ALTHOUGH STILL I'M SHORT IN SOME THOUSANDS EUROS, PRE ORDERS COME ALMOST EVERY DAY.
Still left to write two small chapters - Sponsors (half-written) and Acknowledgments.
On Sunday finished real nightmare - the key for all new species of former C. biflorus group. Hope it will be useful for everyone, even for myself. Yesterday finished synonym list and bibliography.

[Maggi Young]

Janis, successful in gaining support for his new book, has been keeping us updated in the Crocus thread .... as is often the case with such projects, the road to publication of this new book has not been without it's frustrations.... here is the gist of the story.... with links to Janis' original posts.


http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=15087.msg371449#msg371449
Feb. 14th
Shocking news for me  Tomorrow I planned go to Riga to pick up first copies of my book and some minutes ago got call from Printing House that binding machine broke, around 100 copies are damaged and all process stopped up to 27-28 of February, because damage is very serious and must come specialists from producer of machine from Japan.
If I will not receive book on 28th - I decided to cancel contract and will go to another printer. Most likely I will loose prepayment and another company will be more expensive, but I really tired from all those delays and "excuses" - no such paper in Latvia, line waiting for printing on the best printing machine etc. etc.
Most pity, that I deceived you and now left only apologize to all my sponsors and customers of book. Sorry, friends. But you didn't lost your money!!! Book will be printed in any case even if I would be forced to mortgage all my property.



http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=15087.msg371941#msg371941
Feb. 20th
Printing House sent me some pictures from processing of my book and ensured that I will receive it on next Monday. I menaced them with cancelling of contract and jury-process for getting back pre-paid money.
Unfortunately on Tuesday I'm going to mountain trip and I will be back only 10th of March and then I will start despatching of book.






http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=15087.msg372293#msg372293
Feb. 26th
Dear friends,
Book is here - arrived yesterday when I was in Gothenburg (I was lucky - being in Gothenburg I escaped bringing of boxes from trasnsport car into room - it was done by Printing House people). Today started packing for those who pre-ordered it. My apologation to those who will not receive book in the first days as I'm going to mountains, but immediately after returning I will continue despatching. For those who must receive more than 3 copies - you will need waiting up to my return as my post bags are not sufficiently large for more than 3 copies. Tomorrow I will order in local post larger size bags but they need some days before they will come here. Then I will be already in mountains - of course looking for more, may be new, crocuses.





Very exciting to know that the books will be  on their way to all who supported  Janis' venture, or pre-ordered them, when Janis returns from his latest trip.

[Maggi Young]

From today: 27th Feb.

Cfred72 on Today at 04:14:00 PM

    Janis,

    You have the face of the man happy and proud ...
    It's a pleasure to see. 

Janis:

Of course I'm happy. Just returned from Gothenburg where presented the first three copies - reaction was fantastically favourable. I really can be proud with this job, although at present I feel myself something exhausted... Don't know what to do. Need some rest. All the day packed books for pre-orders. Collected all bags of appropriate size in both country post offices in my region and from both district cities post offices - and now they finished. So those who came later now must wait my return from mountains. 10th of March I will restart packing of books.

[Maggi Young]

Dear Janis - I think we can all wait a little longer for our books to be sent - it is more important, I believe, that you take a small rest to be able to be strong for your next trip in the mountains. The stress of the publishing process must have been horrible for you.  Take care of yourself, dear friend!

[Catwheazle]

Hello Janis, I was among the lucky ones to whom you have already sent your book! It has come today. Really, an absolutely super book, an important book with infinity of information, a key and everything on nearly 600 pages.
I am absolutely in the 7th heaven :-)
Thanks for the great book! An absolute "must have"

Bernd

[Maggi Young]

To those who have not yet ordered this excellent  book.... There is no formal order form - To order Janis ' book you need to  email to him to get cost, including postage - janis.bulb@hawk.lv

[Maritfri]

Today I became the happy owner of Jānis Rukšāns new book! Not hard to see that I am satisfied?



A great book that I can not wait to read  Thanks to you Jānis, for this great gift to all crocus admirers!

Marit

[Maggi Young]

Hi Marit !  Yes, I think it is clear how pleased you are -and I am not surprised - it is just a super book - it will be wonderful for all crocus lovers, I think. So much information, so easy to find.