The Heracleum very likely IS actually from Mongolia or at least that region. Youd be amazed how many of the perennial "new introductions" come from all over the world. A lot come from China and other areas in Asia! There are people that travel all over just looking for possible new perennials to growand sellover here! Panayoti Kelaidis from DBG does itheres a link to his blog from his most recent trip, and Kelly Grummons from Timberline used to do it sometimes too. Dont know if he still does. Re: the "cow parsnip," I found this in the Encyclopedia Britannica: ".....the giant hogweed, is native to the Caucasus but is grown elsewhere as an ornamental." That reference is to a different species (H. maximum) that gets even BIGGER, and I found another species specifically linked to Mongolia, and I found this at another site: "Heracleum lehmannianum, originally from Tajikistan. A thumping furry thing with huge cut leaves and big plates of umbels. The seeds in particular have a weird slightly indian spicy but not quite pleasant scent." There are apparently at least 60 different species of Heracleumsome called hogweed. As near as I can tell, the lehmannianum is pretty unusual, and I wish I had an appropriate place to grow it. Theres another reference to the H.l. being from Tajikistan in the article Ive linked below. Its mentioned in the paragraph by the white flowers! Its all kind of interesting when you start to research it! Aint the web a great thing! :-) Skybird

Thank you RJ! Gol, RJ is right, it is a ton of work to maintain a seedbank. Today I'm hunting down another set of pigeon holes to match the 120 I already have. I need to go to 180. And I just had to order two black toner cartridges for about $140. Egad, but you gotta print stuff. Like the labels and documentation for the seeds that just went to a Peace Corp worker in Honduras. Fortunately the bilingual labels will also work for the donation going to a hospital fair two months from now in Los Angeles. I keep a cmoa disclaimer on the list page. If you set up a seed exchange/bank that's what you need to do first. Simply stated, seeds are natural and people are human. (The primary wordsmith for the USDA wrote my current website copyright and disclaimer statement--but that's another chapter in the story wintersown.org) however, if you're going to set up an online database/seed exchange/seedbank/seed anything, you must protect yourself. I don't want people using the WS method for sowing invasives and you don't want to be held accountable for disease transfer, failed trades, idiotic enterprise, and the rest of the human gamut of screw-ups. The least amount of work for you is to set up an exchange forum--that's why I pasted in the make-it-yourself forum link. Make a sticky post with behavioral expectations--you expect people to honor their trades. Make another sticky post with your cyoa disclaimer. Make a forum to discuss shipping/mailing suggestions. Padding is a virtue, sending a flat letter is equal to trashing the seeds because they don't survive being crushed in high speed mail sorters. In other words, make a parameter of rules and expect people to abide by them. You can divide the forums by varieties and/or heirlooms/ops ops(gen F) of hybrids. Whatever else you want. If you're the forum master then those forums are your oyster and you its pearl. Bottom line, you are the owner, you are the boss, you are the webmaster, you are the sherrif. If you can't stomach controversy, heartache, heartburn, belidgerants and trolls, then this may not be for you. You are the posse, you are the judge and you are the jury. Spike gave me great advice years ago; he said "For the good of the ninety-nine you must get rid of the one." So, I do think a seed exchange is always a wonderful thing for its sincere participants; but it is also, in reality, a time-stealing, sometimes anguishing and costly expense for the person in charge. As an analogy, think of Dorothy visiting the Great and Powerful Oz--he really was just a little guy behind the curtain and he had to pull dozens of levers and push many pedals and buttons to keep it all running smoothly. It is a labor of love.

Hi you guys... I'm realbusy on GW. (Gina from NJ)....Good to see some of your old names here and I've even traded with many of you... I've lost the addresses of many a gardening friend over the years now and I'm not happy about that. But oh well, what can you do? Hope everyone will come back on here...I know I was in a round robin exchange but I can't remember who the admin was *sigh*.....maybe ishareflowers ? Anyway, maybe when I have time I will go back over the old e-mails from over a year ago now I guess... Trade on!!! I've posted my new list under my profile.. I have no idea if that is where it is supposed to go but that's where I put it...LOL... gotta figure how to navigate this new site.....

If you always start at the famiar A to Z list, you should never get lost. On the left hand side of your screen towards the top, you'll see a small list. Click on GARDEN FORUMS if you want to visit any of those....just as usual. If you want any of the other categories, click HOME FORUMS or OTHER on that same list on the left side of your screen. You'll never, ever need to go into the Houzz area, unless you want to. I'm doing some remodeling and refurnishing so I want to. :-) I expect that you're making it more difficult than it really is. Maybe? Just stay patient, before you know it, you'll feel at home.