Dave, I dont think that between brooms in Europe and Chernobyl may any common connection. My personal experience in 1987: I sewed a big Pinus wallichiana seedbed of 2 m2. All seedlings were snow white and killed as the seed matter finished. I saw years ago photos of Pinus sylvestris plantation in Ukraine. I saw there horroristic genetic destruction: 10 meter long lying pines, horror gnomes etc. 25 years ago I saw Picea seedlings in a nursery, which were taken for a time into a Rontgen machine. They were also horrors. Brooms are not nuclear constructions, but simply bud mutations. Sometimes "helps" a virus them, but these are usually fertile formations. Brooms, which bring cones and seeds are healthy plants. The Witebsk dwarfs are far not plants with destructed genetics, just usual dwarfs. Maybe their mother tree became some problems, but light. ? Broom hunting is a national sport of Cesko. Many people are collecting brooms there for their home gardens. If they can graft, no one will have infos about the collections. If they collect and let graft at big nurseries as Malik, Valenta, Balatka, Holata etc. - these will be known for others and me too. Please try to imagine a big company of 50-100-500 people, who were organized by Mr. Malik and others. Since 15 years they discover all possible forests week to week, day to day, and the result is given on statistical grounds. They have an intensive backyard with ten thousands of understocks ready for grafting in any time in the year. If anyone builts up such like a basement for accepting fresh brooms, will have success. I guess that in the US & Canadian forests may live about 100-200.000 brooms at all. Just someone must pay the bill of the discoveries. Zsolt

I've been going through old gardening magazines looking for gardening projects I remember seeing in them. I happened to come across an article discussing bulbs. The lady that wrote the article has acreage and plants 1000s' of bulbs every fall. To give you an idea as to the amount of bulbs she plants one year she ordered 3500 bulbs in one fall, fortunately she can buy wholesale since she is a garden consultant. To date when the article was printed she had planted over 22 000 bulbs on her property. (I wish I could have that many, it would amazing.) Anyways, getting off topic here. She says concerning winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis), she planted 1000 with the expectation that about 200 would survive and flower the following spring. Winter aconites are small tubers that tend to desiccate and die in the process of drying, shipping, and waiting for sale and planting. She tries to obtain them as early as possible (so don't wait for them to go on sale), then soaks the tubers overnight in damp peat moss and then plants promptly. Doing this only a quarter survive. Then she relies on them growing and producing seed to multiply. So, that could be the reason why yours didn't come up. I'd try them again and do her suggestion of soaking them before you plant. I'll still try and remember to let you know if mine make it. I'm hoping mine didn't dry out since they were only out of the ground for a week or so. Syreeta

Very nice! Wow, that Ming is sure bright! The pictures look the right way up. Sometimes if you edit something in Photobucket after you've posted it here, you don't see the change but everyone else does. I think it's because your computer stores the image for quicker viewing.

sjn I love the local market too. The produce is always fresh and good. The stallholders do not have it easy, but they are always cheerful and generous. They generally put in some extra, after weighing and paying. The flower man always gives me an extra bunch of flowers. A big bunch of pink chrysanths this week. I had to look up rambutan. I had never heard of it. I bought a persimmon, which I had never tried before. Very yummy. The pink rose behind the tulips, is Annie Laurie McDowell. bart I think we are opposites. I love the heat, more than my poor roses do. Mind you, I am spoilt. the beach is nearby and if it gets too hot, I can go for a swim. On Saturday, I did buy a few spring plants from one of the local garden centres. Daisy