|
BACPS | Newsletter |
| Summer 2006 |
Location: UC Botanical Garden, Berkeley
Program: Dr. Barry Rice
Schedule:
| 12:00-1:00 | Plant sales and Q & A with CP experts |
| 1:00-1:30 | Club business and presentation shorts |
| 1:30-2:30 | Program |
| 2:30-4:00 | Raffle, Auction, Q & A with CP experts |
Our next meeting's special guest and presenter will be Dr. Barry Rice, the recent author of Growing Carnivorous Plants.
Barry Rice has spent a busy year in the field, visiting carnivorous plants in northern and central California, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. He'll spend some time talking about some of his more notable experiences in the field. Furthermore, Barry has been working on horticultural innovations with submerged, aquatic Utricularia. These plants can be very tricky to grow, but by using organic additives (not entirely innovative), he's been having excellent success.
Barry will show photographs from his trips, and will bring some aquatic Utricularia to show off.
by Stephen Davis
Every year the plant show and sale improves and expands. This year we reached
the capacity of the facility. We could not have had another vendor, and
although we could have handled more display plants, most of the categories had a strong showing.
This year the extras really came into play. We had photos of members' collections
displayed, school science projects,
Venus flytrap feedings,
presentations on CP, and videos going
constantly when there wasn't a presentation. If you have some ideas for more next year,
please talk to us. This should be a multimedia event.
You can see the fun as well as the winners at bacpsphotoalbums.homestead.com.
We had a much broader attendance from the general public than we have ever had, and people were coming and going all day. Some of our early shows were nearly empty by 2:00 as club members arrived early, stayed a couple of hours, and left. I don't know if it was some of the fun events such as the Venus flytrap feeding, videos and presentations, better promotion, or just word getting out that we have a show unlike any other, but we attracted a broader audience than ever, and people poured in all day. We had to ask people to leave at closing.
This year there were nearly 100 plants entered in eight categories. About 10-15% of our membership showed and displayed plants. A number of rare and unusual plants were on display, and I am happy to say more than a handful were plants I have never seen before except in pictures, or were much better grown than I had thought possible.
The summer heat did take its toll. There were fewer Sarracenia than I have seen in the past, and most of the ones for sale were in less than perfect shape. I left eight plants at home that I had planned on entering but were just too badly affected by the heat, which reached 140 degrees on the side of my house and 113 in the cool shade of my redwoods.
The presentations and videos were an exciting addition that we experimented with this
year and hope to really expand on next year. Judith Finn did a fantastic presentation on
CP and their trapping mechanisms. Christine Elder gave an superb introduction on
"Wild species' basic habitats, ecological relationships, and the four main trap types."
Stephen Davis spoke about how to build bog gardens ranging in size from half wine
barrels to in-ground, major landscape features. There were also steady videos of
TV garden shows featuring CP, some fun home videos shot for Lindsay Davis's school
presentations, and one of Homer Simpson nearly being eaten by a Venus flytrap.
We had a few celebrity attendees, including three book authors: Pat Kite, who wrote Insect Eating Plants before carnivorous plants were fashionable; Peter D'Amato, author of the award-winning The Savage Garden; and Barry Rice, who just released Growing Carnivorous Plants. There were up-and-coming celebrities as well. I look forward to their contributions over the coming years.
We hope to be putting together an even bigger show next year, and with the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco putting on a CP exhibit, we have a rare opportunity to really put on a Bay Area event. We need your help, and if you are interested, contact Stephen Davis right away (stephenwd@sbcglobal.net). If we don't have early volunteers this year, we will not be able to expand the show and could miss a great opportunity.
by Dominic Diaz
Whew! The 2006 BACPS Show and Sale has come and gone with great success!
Congratulations to all those who entered and won awards -- they truly
were some of the best plants I had ever seen. As Stephen mentioned,
the attendance at this year's event was greater than the two previous
years combined. Putting on a show of this scale requires careful planning
and a wee bit of luck. From an outsider's perspective, the show came
together nicely and was enjoyable. Fortunately, behind the scenes we
had an awesome group of individuals who contributed immensely to pulling off the experience.
My list of thanks reads like an Oscar acceptance speech. Thankfully I don't have a time limit. First and foremost, I would like to thank our fearless leader, Stephen Davis, for his diligent use of resources (i.e., persistent e-mails -- you know you all got one... or one hundred!), his organizational skills, and his keen ability to multi-task. For without him, I would've been lost. I would like to thank our panel of judges: Jim Henrich from the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, Barry Rice, carnivorous plant author extraordinaire, and Judith Hindle, oops... I mean Judith Finn (grin) from the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden, none of whom I envied given the multitude of exceptionally well grown and displayed plants they had to judge. A thank-you goes to Geoff Wong for organizing the panel of judges, freeing him to enter his applaudable sweep of Best of Show, Second-, and Third-place overall winning entries. Do I smell a scandal?
Fran Davis did a great job behind the scenes as the judges' assistant. Many
thanks go to Christina Palmer who single-handedly entered all the plant registration
data. Terri Campbell, Gordon Smith, and David Davis carefully photographed each
plant entry and winner. Doris Quick once again graciously hosted the Plant Hotel,
a stow-away for plant purchases. A HUGE thank-you goes to Paul Bourbin for providing
the sound system for the announcements and presentations in addition to answering all
your CP-related questions as the "Plant Doctor." The expansion into the second hall
allowed for three presentations given by Judith Finn, Christine Elder, and Stephen Davis.
Thank you all for your contributions in adding to the CP experience. Michael Chinn,
Dana Gardner, Jim Daly, Bill Weaver, and Peter Schultz -- thank you for organizing
the lecture hall and running the display plant entries.
Appreciate doesn't even begin to describe how thankful I am for Tony Gridley and Albert Huntington's contributions for web-related postings, flyers, and registration materials. A thank-you goes to both Terri Campbell and Melissa Mork for helping run the raffle. Lindsay Davis shared her VFT school project and led our hungry-plant feeding demonstrations. Joe Mazrimas and Larry Logoteta manned the Welcome table and sign-in. And last but not least, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to all our wonderful vendors: California Carnivores, Raccoon Ridge Nursery, Hortus Botanicus, Forbes Conrad, Stephen Davis and clan, and Margaret Boomer. You all played a part in helping our collections grow!
There were some incredible plants this year, and we want to thank people who took the time to make their plants ready to show, come in early, and then stay late to pick up their plants.
Best of Show |
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| 1st | Nepenthes hamata | Geoff Wong | 
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| 2nd | Heliamphora heterodoxa | Geoff Wong | 
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| 3rd | Sarracenia flava | Geoff Wong | 
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CP in Art |
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| 1st | Nepenthes maxima × veitchii watercolor | Dana Gardner | |
| 2nd | Carnivorous Plant Trap Types | Christine Elder | |
| 3rd | Nepenthes grafiticus | Peter Moran | |
CP Other | |||
| 1st | Heliamphora heterodoxa | Geoff Wong | |
| 2nd | Heliamphora heterodoxa × minor | Joe Mazrimas | |
| 3rd | Cephalotus follicularis | Dana Gardner | |
Dionaea (Venus flytrap) | |||
| 1st | D. muscipula | Geoff Wong | |
| 2nd | D. muscipula | Larry Logoteta | |
| 3rd | D. muscipula | Jim Daly | |
Dish gardens | |||
| 1st | P. sethos, D. dielsiana, D. nidiformis | Dominic Diaz | |
Drosera | |||
| 1st | D. adelae | Dana Gardner | |
| 2nd | D. intermedia × rotundifolia | Dana Gardner | |
| 3rd | D. schizandra | Stephen Davis | |
Nepenthes | |||
| 1st | N. hamata | Geoff Wong | |
| 2nd | N. talangensis | Geoff Wong | |
| 3rd | N. veitchii | Geoff Wong | |
Pinguicula | |||
| 1st | P. cyclosecta | Dominic Diaz | |
| 2nd | P. 'Pirouette' | Dominic Diaz | |
| 3rd | P. esseriana | Dominic Diaz | |
Sarracenia | |||
| 1st | S. flava | Geoff Wong | |
| 2nd | S. 'Judith Hindle' | Geoff Wong | |
| 3rd | S. purpurea venosa burkii × flava ornata | Dana Gardner | |
Utricularia | |||
| 1st | U. sp. | Geoff Wong | |
| 2nd | U. dichotoma | Stephen Davis | |
| 3rd | U. sp. | Stephen Davis | |
by Samuel O. Estes, Jr.
My name is Samuel O. Estes, Jr., and I own and operate a nursery dedicated to growing Nepenthes (Leilani Hapu'u Nepenthes Nursery, Pahoa, Hawaii).
Nepenthes cultivation has been growing in popularity around the world. Pitcher-plants.com (www.pitcherplants.proboards34.com) is a forum originally intended to serve primarily those who are growing Nepenthes in tropical environments (Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, Borneo, and Hawaii). Our membership, however, has expanded, and we now have many members from non-tropical areas also. Our total membership is now around 250 registered individuals and a large number of non-registered lookers and guests. Since most of our members grow their plants in tropical environments, visitors are often amazed at the size and beauty of the many plants our members grow and exhibit on the forum.
Aside from the showcase function of the forum, lively conversations regarding such subjects as "outdoor" growing, fertilization, hybridization, and germination techniques are often featured. Also of particular interest are reports from some of our members regarding plants in the wild (we often have reports from members in Borneo and Singapore). Pitcher-plants.com has quickly become "the forum" as regards Nepenthes cultivation, and we often have posts by the most influential growers and breeders in the world.
In recent months Nepenthes grex and cultivar registration has been a hot topic on the forum. Many of our members feel that the current practices of the ICPS are inadequate as regards Nepenthes registration issues and seek to devise new formulas and procedures. These discussions have paved the way for a very unusual event to take place in the coming weeks on the forum. Starting on October 16, 2006, pitcher-plants.com will play host to an event that, to the best of my knowledge, has never taken place before, an Internet Conference on Grex and Cultivar Registration.
This unorthodox conference is scheduled to open on October 16, but pre-conference debate has already begun, and we would hope that those concerned with these issues would check in, read what has already been written, and start to consider what their opinions might be as regards the various topics of debate when they are addressed at the conference proper. A formal conference agenda will be announced within the next week. It is my sincere hope that the members of the BACPS will find time to participate.
Aloha,
Sam
by Doris Quick
This picture appeared in the Tribune on September 30:
http://www.tela-botanica.org/actu/article1189.html
It is of a dead mouse being removed from a Nepenthes truncata in a conservatory in Lyon, France.
by Joe Mazrimas
| BACPS TREASURY REPORT | |||
| August 26, 2006 | |||
| ASSETS | DEBIT | BALANCE | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raffle | $238.00 | ||
| Sellers | $309.00 | ||
| TOTAL | $547.00 | ||
| Current Balance (08-26-06) | $547.00 | ||
| Previous Balance (03-25-06) | $2781.62 | ||
| TOTAL | $3328.62 |
by Tony Gridley
The Rose Hills Foundation Conservatory for Botanical Science, which opened a year ago at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California (www.huntington.org), contains a carnivorous plant bog as well as other educational exhibits featuring CP.
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The Conservatory also contains other "environments" with an educational focus,
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while the rest of the Gardens are really something.
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November 11, 2006: Fall Meeting
Show photos -- David Davis; Huntington photos -- Tony Gridley
The BACPS Newsletter is a quarterly publication produced by the Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society.
Please send newsletter submissions to Tony Gridley (tgridley@comcast.net). For more information on membership, subscriptions, or events, please visit our website: www.bacps.org.
