Dear ALL
Just a quick note to thank you for all the positive feedback, its been great fun putting together and I hope this helps to promote the IPPS, international horticulture's best kept secret.
Please see my latest report.
Committee meeting Part 2 Saturday 17th May 2008
We started by reviewing discussions from the first meeting for the benefit of those not in attendance earlier in the week. Then followed a round -table discussion looking at the structure of the relationship between the International board and the tour. Listed below are some of the questions raised.
Is the tour too long?
Is it conducive for undertaking the business of our society?
Does it provide value for money for the members back home ?
Should we provide more time and a different working environment to work constructively through the business of our society ?
We then completed the International Reports.
Southern Africa, Andy Hackman told us that their regional conference had been very successful. Attendees were very positive about the IPPS. Many volunteered to run workshops. The region now has a new general secretary and secretary treasurer. Andy reminded us that they have a web site linked to international.
Australia – part two Clive Larkman Clive reported on the Australia conference. Australia has positively targeted young members and this year had a youth session at the conference. Membership is up, initiatives like the ‘six pack’ and student exchange are creating a very positive environment.
We then broke up into three sub – committees; membership, finance and editorial. I sit on membership
This committee continues to work through a list of proposals ahead of the board meeting. Central to our work is the development of our membership tool box. The trick the international committee needs to pull off is to develop ideas, with the appropriate level of support and funding, so that all the regions can access the parts of the toolkit which can most effectively support their membership work.
Meeting closed, on with the Tour !
Bus tour for the day started with a lunchtime visit to the car museum. On arrival we were greeted with the fairground tunes of a practising wurlitzer. I am always draw to musical performances and sat in the hall listening and watching as the wurlitzer rose from below the stage. A separate tour made up of music hall enthusiasts had their picture taken with the machine. I stood in with the group and no one seemed to notice or mind. The car museum, I understand, was equally exciting !
After lunch we stopped off in Waikanae to visit the nursery of Glenys and Gus Evens. This is a manageable in-town wholesale nursery growing a wide range of trees and shrubs , servicing the local market. The nursery is now also open for retail sales and undertakes a small amount of landscaping. Each year they produce approximately 100k plants. Most is propagated in-house with a little bought in tissue culture. The nursery supports Glenys and Gus plus two staff. This was a very interesting nursery producing an excellent range of exciting plants, all grown to a high standard. Along one side of the property stock plants are grown , including a fabulous Begonia fuchsioides. Glenys and Gus clearly know and enjoy what they are doing and we were made to feel most welcome.
Then on to Te Horo Ornamentals, Otaki. Geoff Jewell owns and operates this nursery and concentrates on growing ericas and proteas .
Every now and again you come across a special nursery and this fell into this category. In the UK, outside of one or two small specialists , it is impossible to see well grown protea, banksia and leucodendron. This nursery had them all and more. Geoff took us round the nursery and provided an insightful commentary, just pausing long enough for us to ask questions as we moved through the prop house and production areas.
Geoff is right in the middle of his prop season for proteaceae. Most were on heated prop benches in poly- houses utilising both mist and fog. Bottom heat is set at twenty -three degrees celsius. Cuttings are inserted into trays (flats) and small plastic tubes with cut away bases. If cuttings root quickly and with a high degree of uniformity they are inserted into trays (Erica) while slower rooters go into tubes (Protea) The compost is free draining and made up of ninety percent, one to four millimetre pumice and ten percent peat. Good drainage, preventing water-logging, is essential along with good amounts of available oxygen at the root zone. Managing both water and humidity levels is critical and so each house also has irrigation lines set up over the prop benches. Each bed receives two minutes of watering per day during the summer, which runs quickly through the rooting media. Humidity levels are maintained at between eighty-five and eighty-eight percent. Fog is preferred for grey and hairy foliaged species as this environment is capable of maintaining humidity without continually wetting the foliage.
When heated mist and fog benches are full , unheated floor space is utilised, this has worked well for leucodendron
Cuttings come from juvenile growing stock and from their field grown plants, which are primarily used for cut flower. Most cuttings are semi-ripe, though leucodendron taken a little earlier in the season prior to the base of the cuttings firming, sometimes root much more quickly than later in the year. Rooting hormone is applied at a maximum of 5000 ppm. Success rates vary from ten to one-hundred percent. More than ninety-five percent of production is cutting raised with straight species raised from seed accounting for less than five percent. The kirstenbosch smoke disks are used to treat all proteas with hard coated seeds.
Potting composts consisted of equal parts bark, peat and pumice.
The tour concluded with a visit to the cut flower farm which sends forty- thousand bunches and six-thousand posies to market each year.
Stunning plants included the king protea Arctic Ice, Banksia Birthday Candles, numerous leucodendron and Erica White Delight.
This was a great nursery visit and showed the real benefit of IPPS membership. A specialist nursery , a leader in its field, sharing its knowledge with an international group.
We started by reviewing discussions from the first meeting for the benefit of those not in attendance earlier in the week. Then followed a round -table discussion looking at the structure of the relationship between the International board and the tour. Listed below are some of the questions raised.
Is the tour too long?
Is it conducive for undertaking the business of our society?
Does it provide value for money for the members back home ?
Should we provide more time and a different working environment to work constructively through the business of our society ?
We then completed the International Reports.
Southern Africa, Andy Hackman told us that their regional conference had been very successful. Attendees were very positive about the IPPS. Many volunteered to run workshops. The region now has a new general secretary and secretary treasurer. Andy reminded us that they have a web site linked to international.
Australia – part two Clive Larkman Clive reported on the Australia conference. Australia has positively targeted young members and this year had a youth session at the conference. Membership is up, initiatives like the ‘six pack’ and student exchange are creating a very positive environment.
We then broke up into three sub – committees; membership, finance and editorial. I sit on membership
This committee continues to work through a list of proposals ahead of the board meeting. Central to our work is the development of our membership tool box. The trick the international committee needs to pull off is to develop ideas, with the appropriate level of support and funding, so that all the regions can access the parts of the toolkit which can most effectively support their membership work.
Meeting closed, on with the Tour !
Bus tour for the day started with a lunchtime visit to the car museum. On arrival we were greeted with the fairground tunes of a practising wurlitzer. I am always draw to musical performances and sat in the hall listening and watching as the wurlitzer rose from below the stage. A separate tour made up of music hall enthusiasts had their picture taken with the machine. I stood in with the group and no one seemed to notice or mind. The car museum, I understand, was equally exciting !
After lunch we stopped off in Waikanae to visit the nursery of Glenys and Gus Evens. This is a manageable in-town wholesale nursery growing a wide range of trees and shrubs , servicing the local market. The nursery is now also open for retail sales and undertakes a small amount of landscaping. Each year they produce approximately 100k plants. Most is propagated in-house with a little bought in tissue culture. The nursery supports Glenys and Gus plus two staff. This was a very interesting nursery producing an excellent range of exciting plants, all grown to a high standard. Along one side of the property stock plants are grown , including a fabulous Begonia fuchsioides. Glenys and Gus clearly know and enjoy what they are doing and we were made to feel most welcome.
Then on to Te Horo Ornamentals, Otaki. Geoff Jewell owns and operates this nursery and concentrates on growing ericas and proteas .
Every now and again you come across a special nursery and this fell into this category. In the UK, outside of one or two small specialists , it is impossible to see well grown protea, banksia and leucodendron. This nursery had them all and more. Geoff took us round the nursery and provided an insightful commentary, just pausing long enough for us to ask questions as we moved through the prop house and production areas.
Geoff is right in the middle of his prop season for proteaceae. Most were on heated prop benches in poly- houses utilising both mist and fog. Bottom heat is set at twenty -three degrees celsius. Cuttings are inserted into trays (flats) and small plastic tubes with cut away bases. If cuttings root quickly and with a high degree of uniformity they are inserted into trays (Erica) while slower rooters go into tubes (Protea) The compost is free draining and made up of ninety percent, one to four millimetre pumice and ten percent peat. Good drainage, preventing water-logging, is essential along with good amounts of available oxygen at the root zone. Managing both water and humidity levels is critical and so each house also has irrigation lines set up over the prop benches. Each bed receives two minutes of watering per day during the summer, which runs quickly through the rooting media. Humidity levels are maintained at between eighty-five and eighty-eight percent. Fog is preferred for grey and hairy foliaged species as this environment is capable of maintaining humidity without continually wetting the foliage.
When heated mist and fog benches are full , unheated floor space is utilised, this has worked well for leucodendron
Cuttings come from juvenile growing stock and from their field grown plants, which are primarily used for cut flower. Most cuttings are semi-ripe, though leucodendron taken a little earlier in the season prior to the base of the cuttings firming, sometimes root much more quickly than later in the year. Rooting hormone is applied at a maximum of 5000 ppm. Success rates vary from ten to one-hundred percent. More than ninety-five percent of production is cutting raised with straight species raised from seed accounting for less than five percent. The kirstenbosch smoke disks are used to treat all proteas with hard coated seeds.
Potting composts consisted of equal parts bark, peat and pumice.
The tour concluded with a visit to the cut flower farm which sends forty- thousand bunches and six-thousand posies to market each year.
Stunning plants included the king protea Arctic Ice, Banksia Birthday Candles, numerous leucodendron and Erica White Delight.
This was a great nursery visit and showed the real benefit of IPPS membership. A specialist nursery , a leader in its field, sharing its knowledge with an international group.
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