North Green Catalogue is out

[Maggi Young]

Am I correct in thinking there is ( there used to be) a charge of £2 for the North Green List, Mark?

[Paul Ravenhill]

Cheers Mark, I'll try in the new year for their 2010 list, not sure I like the idea of bidding,

[Anthony Darby]

My catalogue arrived today. Not looked at it yet. I don't like the bidding system, and what's more, I hate buying a "dying" flower which is, in effect, what supplying "in the green" is. The snowdrop sellers are basically having their cake and eating it. If you went to a garden centre you would expect to buy a plant after it's flowered! It would be on the "reduced to 50p" table!

[Anthony Darby]

Mmmm! Seems Eric Morecambe was correct?

[mark smyth]

huh?

Maggi it's £2.50

[Anthony Darby]

Mmmm! Seems Eric Morecambe was correct?

There's no answer to that!

[Maggi Young]

Mmmm! Seems Eric Morecambe was correct?

There's no answer to that!

I thought it might have been  "Nice out, isn't it? ........"

[mark smyth]

I'll just slip in here before bed that Joe's list is due out 3rd week of January

[KentGardener]

Mmmm! Seems Eric Morecambe was correct?

There's no answer to that!

I thought it might have been  "Nice out, isn't it? ........"

He's still got it, you know.

[Brian Ellis]

Cheers Mark, I'll try in the new year for their 2010 list, not sure I like the idea of bidding,

No I quite agree with all that has been said on this.  Besides which the ones you have to bid on (well after all nobody is twisting your arm so we don't have to thank goodness) seem to appear a few years later anyway.  It seems to me that some of the prices are plucked out of the air, perhaps the forum ought to act as a regulatory body

[Tony Willis]

Cheers Mark, I'll try in the new year for their 2010 list, not sure I like the idea of bidding,

No I quite agree with all that has been said on this.  Besides which the ones you have to bid on (well after all nobody is twisting your arm so we don't have to thank goodness) seem to appear a few years later anyway.  It seems to me that some of the prices are plucked out of the air, perhaps the forum ought to act as a regulatory body

Can I suggest each of us isour own regulatory body. If there was no need to own every new (probably the same as most of the others, white with green bits) named bulb there would be  no rush to buy  and the prices would fall. As Brian says nobody is twisting your arm.

[mark smyth]

We can restarin ourselves but there is always those who are loaded who will and can beat us all to the rarity just released

[Anthony Darby]

I've still not opened the catalogue!

[Martin Baxendale]

My problem is that as someone who's into breeding snowdrops, new varieties that have great breeding potential, like a really good poculiform  elwesii, are so tempting when they first appear, even when the price is very high. Do I wait four or five years (or more) for the bulb to become more affordable, by which time I could already have raised a generation of seedlings, or pay through the nose now in a bidding war to get working with the pollen as soon as possible? It already takes so many years to raise new seedlings, and life isn't getting any longer. 

[Anthony Darby]

... life isn't getting any longer. 

Quite correct, but it's the longest thing you'll ever do Martin.