Chen Yi Nursery

[maggiepie]

Not sure where to post this.
Am wondering if anyone has dealt with this nursery, there's not much information on the website.

http://chenyinursery.com/

They have geraniums I have been trying to find for a very long time.

[Maggi Young]

Helen,
 If you have a search around any gardening forum you will likely find threads about ChenYi.

 Also much talk of what has been sourced from there, and how little of it is correctly named.
There is also a reputation for a lot of plants having been taken  from the wild and  also exported illegally.


 

[Carlo]

Maggi is right...it's almost ironic to see this come through as  "new topic". I suspect you'll find copious discussions, both pro and con about this nursery and its plants. It is widely known amongst the folks that import plants from abroad.

[maggiepie]

Thanks, Maggi and Carlo,

Was starting to think that the name was familiar.
I wasn't looking for plants was after seeds.
The pics of some geraniums weren't correct but whatever they were I would love to have them.

[PeterT]

They seem to be the primary exporters of ornamental plants from China.. the moral debates keep going and so does Chen Yi.
With the habitat destruction going on in some areas they might even be reponsable for a part in the ex situ preservation of otherwise extinct species.

[Sarmienta]

This week my order arrived with most Begonia,s and some bulbs.
From all 8 Begonia,s there,s none correct,and all send to me are worthless.
The bulbs ? ............i have to wait offcourse .
I don,t know if they were grown at the nursery or taken from the wild...........that would be very wrong 

[Ezeiza]

In the meantime, people keep on supporting this gross indecency with their orders.

[Diane Whitehead]

At the time Chen Yi first started exporting, we weren't allowed to import
them into Canada, though that had nothing to do with Chen Yi - Canadian
inspectors found nematodes in Chinese plants that had come in with
phytos, so distrusted the Chinese inspection system and wouldn't issue
permits for us to import.

A lot of her plants were imported into the U.S. and U.K.  and offered for
sale by a number of nurseries. 

There was a lot of discussion in specialist groups to get their proper
identities sorted out.

 Seeds from them are offered in exchanges, so I am growing a number of
plants ex Chen Yi - Arisaema, Cardiocrinum, Lilium and Tricyrtis.

I never looked for Geranium seed, but you might find some.

[Lesley Cox]

We can't of course, but it seems to me that most one hears about Chen Yi is synonymous with the words "horror story."

[Ezeiza]

You can, for a modest extra fee, obtain fake Phytos from China.

[Tim Ingram]

Seed seems the obvious and sustainable way of obtaining new plants from different parts of the world, and when so well organised and carried out as the AGS ACE expedition allows material to go to keen growers who are most likely to succeed with it, grow plants on and introduce them more generally to cultivation. When I asked Harry Jans about the prospect of further such collections in China, however, he was deeply pessimistic of the prospect, presumably because of the great difficulties dealing with red tape and, I would have to think you could fairly say, Nationalistic obstructionism. This is a shame because it tends to promote indiscriminate collection of plants from the wild - stimulated as Ezeiza says by our slightly ambivalent attitudes about how we obtain plants! Even some of the most respected plantsmen have been known to 'stretch the rules' (!) so it is difficult to be too righteous about this.

[gote]

As had been said, A large number of species new to cultivation in the west have been introduced by Chen Yi.
One of these is Lilium rosthornii which was considered virtually unknown but turned out to be grown as food crop in some areas (so it has hardly een necessary to collect in the wild). The Cardiocrium giganteum grown in Europe have usually come from the southwesterly part of their range of distribution. These will not survive the Swedish winters and must be protected even in North Germany. I grow since many years (ten?) two clones supplied by CY. (probably from Kansu) These have survived my winters with no protection and flower every third year.

It is very well to sit on the other side of the globe and tell the Chinese what they should do and not do. CY is not a drug smuggler working under the radar. She has been openly exporting plants for a very long time and must be well known to Chinese responsible authorities. Chinese authorities do control what is collected and exported from China as a number of European tourists learnt when the were being arrested for unauthorized collection of seeds.

I agree with Peter: She might well be responsible for ex situ preservation of threatened species. Large areas of Chinese nature are being razed to give space to food crops, water power dams and urbanisation. I think that it is a good thing if plants which can be sold are salvaged. We have horror stories from a country in the west where large populations of desirable plants have been destroyed in spite of volunteers begging to be allowed to salvage them.

To collect and sell plants growing by themselves in the forest is not a bad thing in itself. I do it with a good conscience and approval from Swedish authorities. (Picea abies, Pinus silvestris and the odd hardwood.) It is called logging.

To the original question:
CY is selling many plants from the wild. Thus many are misnamed. This does not necessarily mean that cheap plants are labeled with expensive names. The opposite may also happen. It is partly a kind of lottery.
Because of imprt regulations, they must be sold bare-rooted. That is hard on many plants like Primulas and there is a risk of them dying in transit or thereafter. Bulbs corms etc are more easily transported and will usually do well.
As far as I know, she has been a honest trader as far as money is concerned.

Of course there are horror stories Lesley. Happy customers do not write complaints and those who do not understand basic limitations might easily be disappointed.

Göte



 
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[arisaema]

Of course there are horror stories Lesley. Happy customers do not write complaints and those who do not understand basic limitations might easily be disappointed.

Indeed, having had the pleasure of visiting her at the end of my China-trips three years in a row I can tell you her customer lists read like a who's who of the gardening world. That they don't want to out themselves publicly defending her is however perfectly understandable when reading the replies in this thread... A fair few of her plants ARE from cultivated stock, and the authorities are perfectly aware of what she's doing - there's at least one provincional government that promotes the collection of wild plants for medicinal and horticultural purposes.

[Maggi Young]

You can, for a modest extra fee, obtain fake Phytos from China.

 I would point out that this, while  most likely true (after all for a fee it is possible to obtain almost anything!  )  is Alberto emphasising the level of illegality that some will sink to.


It is not something with which the SRGC would agree or associate with.

To paraphrase the words on Chen Yi  in the recent "Bleeding Hearts" book - the situation exists; it is up to the individual conscience whether or not to get involved.

The SRGC position is that laws are not to be broken but it is not possible for the SRGC to "legislate" for such adherence. It is only possible to state what is the position taken by the Club.

It is true that given the incredibly wide range of people and firms, including some of the most famous names in the plant world, who have had dealings with Chen Yi, that it can appear that there is a level of ambivalence in such matters that is disturbing. 

Personally, I think this is not an issue that can ever be easily resolved.

[Gerry Webster]

...... it can appear that there is a level of ambivalence in such matters that is disturbing. 

You can say that again Maggi! And in other, related contexts too.