Registration is now open for the annual "Ready, Set, Bloom!" garden symposium at the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Virginia, Friday and Saturday, March 25 - 26, 2011. This year's rose speaker is none other than REV. DOUG SEIDEL!!! He is one of my very favorite people, and a national treasure (if I do say so myself). All us East Coast rose people don't have to whine and cry anymore about all the good rose stuff in California. We have our own great event right here. I put up a blog post this morning with details and photos, and a link to the web site to buy tickets. Be there, or be square ... this is a GOOD ONE! Jumping up and down excited!! Connie Here is a link that might be useful: Lynchburg Symposium Details

Thanks, flabrom, that should answer a lot of questions. You know, on this forum we sometimes get so involved in blowing off steam about some photo on FCBS that bugs us or how we think the registry ought to be run, that we forget to mention that we all use these services on an almost daily basis (at least I do), and they are really an invaluable tool for anyone with any kind of interest in bromeliads. I use the registry and photo index databases not just for registering my own hybrids or IDing plants, but also for research into what sort of traits can be expected to be passed on by any cultivar to its offspring. It has saved me an awful lot of time and effort and contributed greatly to my understanding. Even while I'm moaning about hybridizers who register 20 or 30 cvs from the same grex, I still appreciate the opportunity that gives me to look at all of the grexmates and draw some genetic clues from it. I guess that's what you'd call kind of a mixed blessing. ;-) At any rate, none of these things were available when I started hybridizing. Up until just a few years ago there was only hard copy of the registry that got updated maybe once every 10 years (and cost a fair chunk of cash to buy). Back then Sharon P. and I used to spend countless hours on the phone reading the descriptions, or speculating as to what they must look like and trying to picture them in our mind's eye. We'd always end up saying "Jeez, wouldn't it be great if there was some way we could actually see color pictures of some of these plants?" We had a few reference books with pictures, but how could you put ALL of that into a single book? The cost would have been outrageous and it would take a forklift just to lift it! Now it's all available online for free with constant updates, and I, for one, don't know how I ever lived without it!

Dawn, I agree with you and the main person involved in 95% of these heated discussuos is why I don't visit a few of those forums anymore. If it was just one or two issuse personally dear to them this I could understand. But when they feel their opinion should be the official and only one on every issue then it grates me the wrong way. Just like the DTM issue that she don't like. And has even got Baker Creek asking if they were early, mid or late season in your garden. That type of description is worthless in my opinion. Late season is 70-85 days if I remember correctly. A lot of differnce. It is like some posts I saw by a breeder and grower. He said the best and most useful is listing daylight hours required to maturity. I know you know what I'm talking about but some reading it might now. It runs along the same thinking as short, intermediate and long day onions. Basically it takes som many hours of sunlight for a plant to reach maturity. So the further north a plant in grown where the days are longer it takes less. And the as you go where day length is shorter during the growing season it takes more days. I've found that to be true for me. When getting seeds from a grower from where days are shorter during the grwoing season I substact 5-7 days from her growing times and when grown by some growers with longer days I may add 5-7 days and have found this to be very close for me. A lot more useful than say mid season. And I don't have a problem with them listing mid season as long as they continue to list DTM's. Yes we may not always agree here on everything but we disagree in a friendly way and respect the opinions or others. Off my soap box again. Better get back outside on this nice day. Pulled the mulch back in a few spots this morning and the garlic that hasn't been in 3 weeks yet is poking through the ground. Now has 5-6 inches of mulch to get through. Ground nice and warm. Some more things popping through in the cold frame. Need to plant some more that has came in since I planted. More seeds arrived today. Had to come in and look at my early Christmas presents. LOL. Hope everyone is receiving this beautiful weather. Jay

Actually mid-season means squat. If it blooms mid-season for the hybridizer, it will probably bloom mid-season for you. Mid-season for Florida is a lot earlier that mid-season in Ohio. The garden center flowers probably came from a big box supplier who is further north than you.