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Spring 2021 meeting (Zoom)
On Sunday 28th March 2021 we have arranged a virtual meeting at 1:30 for 2pm using the Zoom online video-conferencing software. This should allow anyone with a computer, laptop, tablet or smart-phone to participate. An Internet connection will be required (which you presumably have if you are reading this!) and preferably also a microphone and video-camera (often combined and sometimes called a webcam) if you wish to say something. These are built into smartphones, most tablets and many laptops, and can be plugged into desktop computers.
Jon Evans will show the second part of his talk on “Plants seen at AGS shows” for our Zoom meeting at 2pm. This will be a chance for all those members who can’t normally travel to our meetings in person to join in. Jon gave us the first part of his talk at our last physical meeting on 6 October 2019 in Winchester. We will email details of the link to join the talk nearer the time.
Our Zoom meeting is at 14:00, on the day the UK moves to British Summer Time (BST, daylight saving), one hour ahead of GMT/UTC.
You might miss it if you are a member in the UK or most other European countries and forget to change your watch or clocks,
or if you are a member in another country whose time does not change at the same time as ours (e.g. USA, Canada, Australia, etc.)
You can see the current time in the UK here: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/uk/london
Latest newsletters
- The most recent published newsletter is number 42 (August 2020)
- You can read or download all the SABG newsletters from our list of newsletters
- There may be a draft of the next newsletter: Newsletter no. 42 but it is likely to be incomplete.
News items
- Graham Duncan’s Lachenalia book is available again for just £40 from PostScript books (https://www.psbooks.co.uk/Genus-Lachenalia). This excellent book was originally priced at £130. Thanks to Alice Vanden Bon for drawing my attention to this offer. [6 April 2021]
- We are sorry to have to report the death of Terry Smale on 16 February 2021, at the age of 76. He was one of our founding members and always a friendly and enthusiastic source of plants, information and encouragement. He will be greatly missed, and not just by SABG members: he was an active member of the BCSS, Mesemb Study Group, AGS and RHS. He had a large collection of Conophytums – the BBC filmed his plants for a 6-minute section of the “Gardeners’ World” programme shown on Friday 28th August 2020, which can be seen on-line at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08qn68n 1). On behalf of the SABG and its members, the Committee send their condolences to his wife Jennifer. [8 March 2021]
- Buying seeds from Silverhill: Some members may be put off ordering from overseas suppliers because of the recent changes to plant health regulations in the EU, which still apply in the UK. Jeremy Spon reports that Ondine at Silverhill’s now pools orders from the UK and sends them in one parcel, with a single covering phytosanitary certificate, by courier to her son who lives in Aberdeen, who then sends the individual orders out in the UK post. She makes a charge to each person over and above the cost of the seeds to cover the internal UK postage and a share of the cost of the phyto and the courier. So anyone in the UK can now order from Silverhill’s, safe in the knowledge that their order will be covered by a phyto without it adding a great deal to the cost of their order. There may be a slight delay in the actual turnaround, as Ondine will have to wait until she has enough orders to justify the courier’s charge, although hopefully the flow of orders will be sufficient that any such delay should be slight. It would be nice to do what we can to help Silverhill’s business to thrive, given how dependent we all are on them for seed of the bulbs we all want to grow. They accept PayPal, so ordering should be fairly painless, but I can’t see any description of the phytosanitary certificate process on their website (https://silverhillseeds.co.za), so I suggest you email Ondine at info@silverhillseeds.co.za to check before you place your order. [21 January 2021]
- Cape Seed and Bulb: If it’s bulbs you’re after, here is the recent illustrated list from Jim Holmes (https://www.capeseedandbulb.com/) of Stellenbosch. [21 January 2021]
Bulb and Seed Exchange 2020
- The annual Bulb & Seed Exchange for 2020 has now finished.
About the SABG web site
This is a new version of the SABG web site, which is intended to contain all the information from the original SABG web site (which will remain available for a while, but will not be updated). The URL (location, address) at which the web site can be found has not changed. It is www.sabg.tk or just sabg.tk. It is a secure web-site. If your web browser says it isn’t, go to https://sabg.tk. Information about our compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can be found in our Privacy Policy.
This new version is hosted by a company whose servers are housed in an energy-efficient data centre powered by energy from green renewable sources. It’s implemented as a “wiki” in order to make it easier for people to contribute to it. The page “What's a wiki?” gives more details of how it works. Please email me with any problems or suggestions.
[Copyright © 2021 by the Southern African Bulb Group and Richard White.]
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