My Bit of Heaven - by Kristl Walek

[ChrisB]

What a perfect ending to a year of your thoughts, ideas and inspirations in this thread, Kristl.  Your writing skills are only eclipsed by your talent with plants and seeds.  I do hope you will continue this thread, which I have been reading ever since you started it last year.   And don't forget to post here when your book is published, we all want to buy one!!!

[mark smyth]

I should have renewed my  NARGS subscription when it ran out.

[Katherine J]

And don't forget to post here when your book is published, we all want to buy one!!!

I agree with that!

[Linda_Foulis]

Congrats Kristl that is simply awesome! 

As for the forthcoming book, maybe you should start taking orders now, please.  Sign me up for one, please, I would be quite miffed if I missed out due to my lack of attention.

[Tony Willis]

Well done Kristl, I always enjoy your posts which are full of interest. Please continue.

[Maggi Young]

Friends-  literally thousands of you have followed, buoyed with the twin pleasures of learning and entertainment from the superb photos and information provided, the tales from My Bit of Heaven given over the last while by Kristl Walek 



I am so pleased to be able to announce here that Kristl is ready, willing and able to continue her posts.
I do not doubt that you will be as eager as I am to anticipate Kristl's posts, winging their way here from Canada .......
 

Thank you, Kristl !

[Kristl Walek]

Last season I did not begin the tour of my Bit Of Heaven until spring had sprung; after all, what could I show you in the depths of winter in the Ottawa Valley of Ontario, Canada?

There are 3-4 months of cold and snow still ahead of me. It's been an average winter thus far
(-20 to-35C lows) although the coldest month is yet to come. At least there is some snow this year (about 60cm so far) which is not always the case.

The senses are quite taxed in winter here. Walking around my property, it is the shape and form of the woody species that the eye registers. There are few berries that hang on into deep winter in this climate, with the exception of Viburnum trilobum and Celastrus scandens. Here and there stray seed pods still linger.

[Kristl Walek]

My seed building is a large structure at the rear of my acreage, a short walk from my house (although it feels much further in a blizzard). And this is where I spend most of my time during the long winters here.

Until Christmas it is a madhouse of frenzied activity with seed cleaning, testing and packaging seed during the days, and updating the website during the nights. January is the beginning of high season, which will last through April. I normally work 7 days a week, 12-18 hours per day getting orders out. I now sell in over 35 countries, with my first order from South Korea this week to be added to the list.

The shelves which were, until recently, stuffed with seed bags to be cleaned are now bare. And the seed cleaning equipment is tucked away for another year. Padded mailers and shipping boxes of various sizes take up another few bookshelves.

My packaged seed for any particular season is stored alphabetically in recycled library file cabinets. As there is not enough space in the cabinet for large quantities of each individual seed, they are packaged in roughly 25-50 packs, depending on expected popularity and then re-packaged as they run out.

The bulk dry seed from the current season are kept for a while in plastic bins close by. I will need daily access to these when I have to fill wholesale/bulk orders. In mid to late February when most of the nurseries and other institutions looking for larger quantities of seed have more or less finished ordering, all the bulk seed from the current season gets put into the freezer. Some short-lived dry-stored seed has been kept in the freezer right from collection time (Pulsatilla, Tiarella, etc).

I have two large freezers here, and they are overflowing. The larger one on the right holds all the "reserve seed"---these are primarily species going back well over 20 years. They include valuable samples from all my collection trips as well as small stock quantities of every species I have ever carried. The left freezer is normally for current season seed. All seed is frozen in paper bags inside plastic bins.

[Kristl Walek]

The ephemeral (moist-packed) seed is obviously handled differently. The large, bulk quantities are inside big zip-lock bags in moist vermiculite, alphabetically stored in multiple bins. From the large bulk bags, I fill tiny ziplocks of the seed for sale and put them inside the individual black pots you see in the picture.

These are lined up on a shelf, with their respective names on the front, and put into their descriptive seed envelope when I fill the orders.

Throughout the season, I will need to keep tabs on the moisture level inside both the bulk bags and the re-packaged little zip-locks and to re-moisted them, when necessary (and it is always necessary).

I also have to ensure that nothing odd happens inside the zip-locks. The usual "odd thing" here is that species germinate in moist-packing when they are not supposed to. I've carried the native Lindera benzoin for some time now---and it has a warm-cold-warm germination pattern.

As a result, I normally moist-pack it and keep it at the initial warm period as an aid to my customers, who then only need to provide the cold. Well, who knows why it decided to germinate this year during the first warm phase. When I saw the sprouts inside the little zip-locks, I checked the bulk bags, and sure enough, there were already plants of significant size inside the bags.

I do love my on-line catalogue for moments like this---one minute Lindera was there---then it is gone.

[Kristl Walek]

You may recall that one of my objects of study has been the longevity of the ephemeral "green" fern spores. Last spring/early summer fertile fronds of the native ferns having ephemeral spores were collected.

The spores of each species were divided into batches that were respectively kept:
(1) In open storage (room temperature).
(2) In the fridge
(3) In the freezer

The frozen-spore Osmunda regalis and cinnamomea were the first to be tested--sown on vermiculite in clear plastic containers on December 6th. Action was extremely fast--and in short order the ephemeral spore showed that it was still clearly alive and viable after being frozen. When I look at the green mass with a magnifier, there are little green fernlets happening!!!!!

[Ian Y]

A fascinating series of posts Kristl I love seeing other peoples methods and systems wether on a small scale or a large scale operation like you are running.
I hope you have a good heating system in your seed house as we don't want you in cold store

[art600]

Kristl

Thanks for your posts - look forward to many more.

[Katherine J]

Yes, we are looking forward to many more.
Thank you for spending the 19th our besides your work showing us all these!

[ian mcenery]

Thanks Kristl this is most interesting . One could say I suppose "so much to learn so little time"    

[Staale]

Ooh, I love theese posts, Kristl. Like you I suffer a very long winter, and apart from seed sowing, I do not know how I made it before the www made stuff like your fabolous posts happen right in my own living room!