YES!!! The "I'm So Happy!" thread - 2011

[arillady]

David the seed was labelled Albuca shawii - I planted it even though it wasn't right. Like my one time of being burnt on ebay when I received seed that I knew was not an onco. I planted the seed to see what they were - one was a holly hock (that was easy from the seed) and the other a salvia - regular sage.
I just thought it might be a regular species of Auricula hence the question. Possibly isn't - all speculation!

[Maren]

Well done Mark. My son did that for a while and he'd never been so fit.

[David Nicholson]

Four interpretations of one of my favourite songs.


   Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine

    Julie London

   Yvette Johansson

   Buffalo Ridge Jazz Band

[Lesley Cox]

Pat, David's right, your auricula is probably a hybrid but it looks very close to 'Broadwell Gold' (which you musn't call it), one of the very finest hybrids of all raised by the late Joe Elliott of Broadwell Alpines, no longer in existence. It looks a beauty - and have you sniffed at it yet?

[Lesley Cox]

I'm very happy too because I have found a use for the little brown plastic phials that come, one per packet, with the packeted sachets of Nestle cappucino coffee, to which I've recently taken a shine. These tubes have holes in the top and a flip lid and contain the chocolate powder which is shaken onto the mixed coffee. When empty I am now washing them out and carefully draining then drying then - standing them in a sunny place - then filling them with salt. I have 4 so far.

Why I'm happy about this is because I get terrible - excrutiating - cramp in my legs, anywhere from top of them to my toes and the quickest, or only cure is to swallow a little salt, about a quarter tsp, with water. The cramp goes within 30 seconds. I keep one by my bed, one in my handbag, one in a tatty jacket pocket and the other has a roving brief at present. But I'll prepare a couple more as well.

I eat masses of bananas which make no difference, I've tried 3 separate drugs from the doctor, no difference so have given up trying to find a preventive. I walk about 3 kms per day and get plenty leg exercise around the garden as well. So salt it is.

[Lesley Cox]

I'm very happy too, because a friend who was able to go up to the NZAGS Show, was able to buy for me a plant of Podophyllum 'Spotty Dotty.' I had it before, gave some away then lost the rest. This one already is in bud. '

[arillady]

Lesley sniffing was one of the first things I did as I had always read that primulas have a lovely scent - and now I know primula scent
Yes I do know that you don't give the parent cultivar name - ever on seedlings.

[Lesley Cox]

Sorry Pat, I didn't mean to suggest you may not know you mustn't. It just annoys me no end when I send seed in to the lists with ...ex a cultivar name and have the seed list people omit the ex, suggesting the seed will come true and IS that plant. Even if it looks exactly similar, the genes are different to some extent so it can't be the same plant.

[TC]

Leslie
I suffered badly from leg cramps and my doctor prescribed Quinine Sulphate tablets  - one to be taken at bedtime.  Since then -no problems

Why I'm happy about this is because I get terrible - excrutiating - cramp in my legs, anywhere from top of them to my toes and the quickest, or only cure is to swallow a little salt, about a quarter tsp, with water. The cramp goes within 30 seconds. I keep one by my bed, one in my handbag, one in a tatty jacket pocket and the other has a roving brief at present. But I'll prepare a couple more as well.

I eat masses of bananas which make no difference, I've tried 3 separate drugs from the doctor, no difference so have given up trying to find a preventive. I walk about 3 kms per day and get plenty leg exercise around the garden as well. So salt it is.

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks Tom, I'll suggest that to my doc next time I see him though if I remember rightly, and it's 6 or 7 years ago now, quinine was the first thing I tried with minimal results. The other two drugs also seemed to work well for a couple of months but less and less as I continued to take them. Roger is tired of me waking in the night screaming and shouting!

[Lesley Cox]

This weekend was our very small Otago Alpine Garden Group Show, held in conjunction with the local Hort Soc and the daffodil show.

One first, 3 seconds, a third and two unplaced. I'm happy with that. 1st, 2nd and 3rd in potted Fritillaria.

[Gerry Webster]

Sorry Pat, I didn't mean to suggest you may not know you mustn't. It just annoys me no end when I send seed in to the lists with ...ex a cultivar name and have the seed list people omit the ex, suggesting the seed will come true and IS that plant. Even if it looks exactly similar, the genes are different to some extent so it can't be the same plant.

Apparently no longer as simple as that. If the seedlings of the original cultivar are identical in appearance to the parent and have maintained the characteristics that defined the cultivar then it is permissible  to use the cultivar name for the seedlings.

[Lesley Cox]

Is that so Gerry? Fair enough I suppose but one raises a batch of seedlings from a cultivar and there is likely a range of variation so by using the cultivar name for any of them, most people will use it for all of them. Of course it's important to know which "cultivars" are exactly that, forms raised in cultivation which have some different or superior feature from the oriiginal plant, or whether they are plants, often of unvarying species, collected in the wild but given a "cultivar" name in order to receive some award. To me, this practice is iniquitous and should never have been started by RHS or whoever it was who was responsible.

I don't see me progressing very far with THAT argument though.

[Martin Baxendale]

Sorry Pat, I didn't mean to suggest you may not know you mustn't. It just annoys me no end when I send seed in to the lists with ...ex a cultivar name and have the seed list people omit the ex, suggesting the seed will come true and IS that plant. Even if it looks exactly similar, the genes are different to some extent so it can't be the same plant.

Apparently no longer as simple as that. If the seedlings of the original cultivar are identical in appearance to the parent and have maintained the characteristics that defined the cultivar then it is permissible  to use the cultivar name for the seedlings.

Gerry, surely that can't apply if the name was originally given to a vegetatively propagated clone which has long been propagated and distributed vegetatively? Doesn't it only apply if the name is given in the first instance to a grex or strain of virtually identical seedlings which then continue to reproduce sexually to give virtually identical offspring? For example, I shouldn't raise seedlings from Daphne bholua 'Jacqueline Postill' and then call them D. b. 'Jacqueline Postill' no matter how similar they might look to the parent.

[Gerry Webster]

Martin - this is my understanding of the latest version of the International Code (2009). See:

http://www.actahort.org/chronica/pdf/sh_10.pdf

A cultivar is defined solely in terms of characteristics - origin is deemed irrelevant.