| BACPS 2009 Show and Sale |
| Bug Day at the Randall Museum |
| Plant Collectors Show at Alden Lane Nursery |
| Upcoming Events |
Bug Day! |
by Doris Quick
Date: June 20, 2009
Open to members and the public: 12:00 to 4:00
Location: Lakeside Park Garden Center, 666 Bellevue Avenue, Oakland
Details: Detailed information can be found
at www.bacps.org/show.html
Open for those selling plants to set up: 9:00am to 11:45am
We have the best growers
coming from all over the state to sell plants this year. So far we've received
confirmations from Lois Ochs, Peter D'Amato, Margaret Boomer, Stephen Davis,
Mike Wang, Mitchell Davis, Steve Sykes, and David Connor. If you haven't let Doris
know how many tables you need, please do so soon.
If you have some plants to sell, contact Doris at doris_q@pacbell.net.
Open for those displaying plants and setting up: 9:00am to 10:30am
Judging starts at 10:30, so please get your plants to us before then.
Show Categories
- Venus Flytrap - Dionaea
- Sundew - Byblis, Drosera, Drosophyllum, Roridula
- Butterwort - Pinguicula
- American Pitcher - Sarracenia
- Asian Pitcher - Nepenthes
- Other Pitcher - Brocchinia, Cephalotus, Darlingtonia, Heliamphora
- Aquatic - Aldrovanda, Genlisea, Polypompholyx, Utricularia
- Arrangement - Dish garden, Terrarium
- Art Work - Art
If you don't have that competitive desire but want to show off some of your plants,
we'll have a display area. Please bring them before noon.
Also, judged plants must remain until 4:00pm. There is nothing more disappointing
than coming late to the show and seeing a bunch of empty places on the tables.
Number One Thing You Can Do to Help Make This a Successful Show
BRING YOUR PLANTS!! As with every year, the success of the show is not in what
the vendors bring, but what the MEMBERS bring! Not only your enthusiasm for the
plants, but your ACTUAL PLANTS! Without your beautifully grown plants there is
no show. Please, bring them in. They don't have to be perfect, they don't have
to be rare, and you don't have to enter them for judging, you can just display
them. We are always surprised that there are so few Venus flytraps, and usually
only one or two Cephalotus. Please bring your plants to show.
For entry forms and information go to: www.bacps.org/showinfo.html.
What Else Can I Do to Help?
Print out our new and fantastic poster
and hang it up at any public place that
allows it, especially nurseries, pet shops, and campuses. We MUST get the word
out!
Have you noticed that there is more to the show every year beyond just plants?
We have had science projects, fun facts to know, Venus flytrap feedings, images
of BACPS events, and how to grow carnivorous plants. Have you thought that the
show needed something more to make it that much more complete and professional?
Something to teach, amaze, or just fascinate someone?
Contact Stephen or Doris
and tell us what your idea is, and we can tell you if we have room for it at the show.
We can always use some "experts" to answer questions or perhaps give a talk.
There will be VFT feedings again this year. We need members to volunteer their plants for feeding.
They'll be returned after the show "fat and happy."
We also need someone to be "Official Event Photographer." Please contact
Stephen if you're willing to perform this
important task.
One last thing you can do is to volunteer to help with the
cleanup after the show. There isn't a lot involved in breaking down
after the show, but it would go a whole lot faster if a couple of you
would volunteer to help out.
OK, let's get going! Go to the website often and look for updates.
The poster is on the website. Take them to your college campus and your
local nursery and pet shop, wherever they might be seen. We MUST get the word out!
by Tony Gridley
Once I found myself on a two-day camel safari in the western desert of
Rajasthan near the Pakistani border, and because I was riding a rather
independent-minded camel I was given a large stick with which to
encourage my beast. Under the sheltering sky of the remote desert, however, I discovered
in my deepest self a complete and utter lack of aptitude for camel-discipline,
and I used the stick only to play-fight with village children every time
we stopped for food or water.
My job at the BACPS Show and Sale involves a tiny amount of discipline, but because
I've learned I'm not a disciplinarian, I would like to enlist the help of
our exhibitors. The role of Assistant to the Registrar mostly
involves printing sequential numbers in boxes and folding pieces of paper
along dotted lines -- oh, I've been good at these particular jobs for ever so long! --
but my most important task involves staying alert and intercepting
any exhibitors who are just about to hold dripping-wet plants over the
registration computer's keyboard. If the exhibitors can please try to be sensitive
to this issue and keep plants far away from computers, I will not look
quite so foolish.
The Randall Museum's annual Bug Day, on the other hand, can involve a bit of play-fighting with
kids, especially those who are a little too well-behaved to touch the plants.
Many of the Bug Day activities involve pretending to be a bug in some way -- running
and jumping like a bug, donning bug masks or antennae -- and if you can convince a kid to
pretend he or she's a bug around CP, you can let the plants conduct the science
experiment themselves.
One kid this year wanted to touch the flytraps but also wanted to
know exactly what would happen before she did the experiment, which will just not do. We told her to use
a finger that she didn't need, and she got very indignant. "I need all of them!" she said,
quite emphatically, but then she went ahead... and was totally amazed and delighted.
Last year's volunteers -- Ron LaPedis, Margaret Boomer, and I -- staffed the BACPS booth
again this year, and a great time was had by all. The Randall counted 1143 visitors in
four hours, and nobody bypasses the three BACPS tables laden with cool stuff to gawk at and play with.
As with camels, so it is with carnivorous plants, as I've said so often in my life.
June 6-7, 2009
10am to 4pm
We would like to extend an invitation to our first Collectors Show, featuring bonsai,
carnivorous plants, cacti, succulents, orchids, and koi fish. This event is free and
will consist of bonsai, orchids, and carnivorous plants on display, lectures and demos,
as well as vendors and educational exhibits. The venue will be Alden Lane Nursery -- a
beautiful destination graced with a grove of 300-year-old oaks and thousands
of blooming flowers and demonstration gardens that will inspire and delight.
Fun for the whole family. Free admission, free parking, free demos and lectures -- Come and Enjoy!
Alden Lane Nursery
981 Alden Lane
Livermore, CA
(925) 447-0280
www.aldenlane.com
(BACPS member Charlie Siders will have a table at this event, and if anyone
else would like to participate as an exhibitor, please contact Sue Fordyce-Darden at
sue@aldenlane.com. Alden Lane
is not doing Dirt Day this year.)
June 20, 2009: BACPS Annual Show and Sale, Lakeside Park Garden Center, Oakland
July 18, 2009: Summer BACPS meeting, California Carnivores, Sebastopol. Potluck lunch social.
November 21, 2009: Fall BACPS meeting, University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley
Photo Credits
Meal worms with taco sauce -- Ron LaPedis; other photos -- Tony Gridley
The BACPS Bulletin serves as a monthly forum for members to make CP-related
announcements: events, want ads, items for sale, information sought,
growing tips, etc. Submissions must be received by Tony Gridley
(tgridley@comcast.net)
by the 23rd of the month prior to publication.
www.bacps.org
