ALPINES'21 & CORONAVIRUS (SARS-COV-2 / COVID-19)

The International Rock Garden Conference 2021 - a gathering for lovers of plants, gardens and mountains - was  ready  to be  held held 08-11 May 2021 at Perth Concert Hall, Perth, Scotland, unfortunately, due  to  the  CORONAVIRUS (SARS-COV-2 / COVID-19) and following careful consideration and discussions between the 2021 Conference Committee, the SRGC Council and the AGS, we have taken the unanimous decision to cancel the "Alpines 2021” conference, due to the ongoing coronavirus (SARS-COV-2 / COVID-19) pandemic. We do this with a heavy heart, and hope you understand this was not an easy decision, but it is our belief that the effects of this virus will be felt for a considerable time. International travel, which is an essential part of any international conference is also likely to be curtailed through next year at least. Therefore, cancellation at this time is in the best interests of everyone's health and wellbeing.

The Scottish Rhododendron Society, the Rhododendron Species Conservation Group and the  Czech Rock Gardeners Society were pleased to be sponsorship partners to the Conference but understand the reasons to cancel.

REFUNDS
We are arranging for all booked delegates to receive a full refund of their registration fees. We have directly emailed all booked delegates with more information.

CONTACT US
The Alpines 2021 email address will remain active and regularly monitored for some time yet. If there are any problems or queries with your refund, please contact us at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

We know that you will be as disappointed as we are, but we hope we can all meet again when circumstances permit.

Keep well all,

SRGC 2021 Committee 

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Please be aware that annual SRGC subscriptions for "postal" members are due for renewal on 1st October.

You can renew - or join - and read about the benefits of  SRGC membership, for "postal" membership - where you receive the Journal and Secretary's Pages etc by post - and other memberships, via this page.

 

Please note that there is a special category for postal Junior - for those below the age of 18 in the relevant subscription year: £3 per annum in the UK, £7 per annum overseas. (Please give date of birth)

 

For Students the SRGC offers  a free electronic subscription. Send your application toThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (Please give your place of study, the date of end of course of study.)

 

 

You can read about the new "online electronic" subscription - where you only access Journals etc online - no journals are posted to you : here.

Read more...

Scottish Rock Garden Club is a Charity registered with Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR):  SC000942

NOTICES 

N.B. Main items of SRGC News can be found here on the main site,  and also be found HERE in the forum.

July 2020 

Important notice  about  the SRGC  Forum  27th July 2020

 

As previously  advised, the SRGC forum was  unavailable over the weekend  as essential work was tackled to renew servers   - after  this  work your  normal bookmarks will not  work directly - the  forum will be  on www.srgc.org.uk  so you will need  to make  new  bookmarks.

Thank you for your  patience while  this vital work was  undertaken.

The  Forum is  now  back to normal and we  look forward  to meeting you  all in the  forum soon!

 

JUNE 2020

SEED EXCHANGE NEWS

 

NO SRGC SEED EXCHANGE IN 2020-2021

We are very sorry to have to announce that there will be no SRGC Seed Exchange in 2020-2021. The Covid 19 pandemic has led to all sorts of restrictions this year, and after much discussion, the teams responsible for the three elements of the seed exchange have reached the conclusion that it will not be possible to carry out the seed exchange in circumstances which are likely to require social distancing, and may well place limitations on groups of folk gathering indoors. We also recognise that many of the volunteers key in the running of the exchange are among the higher risk segments of the population, and may be reluctant to volunteer in the usual way. So, please accept our apologies, bear with us until 2021, and read on to find out what we are proposing to do.

 

NEW EU PLANT AND SEED IMPORT REGULATIONS

In December 2019 the EU implemented new plant and seed import regulations, which apply to the UK as much as any other EU member state. Defra have confirmed that these mean that any seed being sent into the EU from other parts of the world now requires a phytosanitary certificate, with no exceptions. This obviously will affect all of those members who are kind enough to donate seed to us from outside the EU, and we will take the opportunity that the 2020-21 cancellation gives us to try to work out ways in which key donations from other parts of the world might continue to be made to us.

 

As we write, we are also unclear as to what will happen after the UK transition period ends on December 31^st and we finally leave the EU. We do not know whether this will mean that from January 2021 we will need to obtain phytosanitary certificates for all seed we send to our members in the EU. Again, we will be keeping in touch with developments and looking for ways in which we can continue to operate the seed exchange in future.

We will update you all with more information on these developments when it becomes available.

 

2019-2020 REMAINING SEED - OFFER TO UK MEMBERS

 

After the seed distribution is completed each year, we have some seed left over which normally goes on tour around the SRGC Spring Shows for members to buy. This represents the last 5-10% of the seed we packet, and Ian and Carole Bainbridge have two trays with around 3000 packets of seed sitting unused this year. If any UK member would like some seed, you can email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or write to Ian & Carole, address below, with a list of genera you would like, or list large blocks of numbers from the 2019-20 seed list, and your postal address. Seedlist 73 for 2019-2020 can be found here: https://www.srgcseed.net/seedlistarchive.asp

Ian & Carole have agreed they will post out packs of up to 50 packets of seed. In return, members will be asked to make a donation on the SRGC website, details in the box below.

We are sorry that this offer is only being made to UK members, but we are not in a position to deal with import permits, customs lists or overseas postage in the current circumstances. In normal years, this seed is only available to UK members at shows, of course.

Email requests to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. are preferred, but you may post requests to:
Ian & Carole Bainbridge, SRGC Seed Offer, Luckie Harg’s, Anwoth, Gatehouse of Fleet, Dumfries and Galloway, DG7 2EF.

 

COLLECTION OF SEED FOR 2021 SHOWS

Even though we will not be running a main exchange in 2020-21, we have been thinking of the ways in which seed might be made available to members.

 

We are therefore seeking volunteers who might collect some seed to be available for the SRGC shows that we hope will be able to take place in spring 2021. If you are a UK member, you could help us in the following way:

• Collect seed of a few choice or unusual plants from your garden – no more than five types.
• Check that these taxa were on the 2019-20 seed list; we will use the same numbers as last year.
• E-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with a note of your 5 items and your postal address, so we can send you labels, glassine envelopes and instructions on packeting and returning seed.
• Make up ten packets of each of your 5 items and send the seed back in to us for collation.

 

If around 70 members help with this, we can have the normal volume of seed available for the shows in 2021. If we reach this point, the seed collection will then be closed. Neil and Sheila McNulty have offered to manage this process on our behalf; many thanks to them. We realise that if it is not possible to hold the shows, the seed may never be used, and we may have wasted effort, but we think it worthwhile trying.

 

Ian & Carole Bainbridge on behalf of the SRGC Seed team.

 

 

APRIL 2020

The Scottish Rock Garden Club  is  pleased  to announce  a new  project -This is the Scottish Rock Podcast, the official podcast of The Scottish Rock Garden Club.   Grateful thanks are  due  to Connor Smith for his  work on this initiative. We  are  delighted  to add these  podcasts  to the  range  of  free access resources we offer  to all from SRGC.net  - such as  the  Bulb Logs, International Rock Gardener monthly e-magazine  and  so much more - and we  hope  plant  lovers will enjoy the  podcasts!

 


Reach the  podcasts  here - or  from your  usual podcast  provider  -
https://anchor.fm/connor-smith57

First  podcast  from Connor  is  "It's all a little bit Greek"

Well done  to Connor  for  his  work on this on behalf  of  SRGC!

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Click here to see SRGC Shows and events in the  Forum 

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SRGC has a very useful section on this website  of  LINKS to  sites  of interest : there are  nearly 260 sites listed, these  include Nurseries, Plant Related Web Sites, Miscellaneous Related  Info sites (Holidays, Garden Supplies  etc.),  Plant Societies and Seed Suppliers. Members are invited to  submit  details  of  website they feel are missing from the lists.  The  Links Pages  can be found  HERE http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?action=links

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SRGC Subscription Reminder :

 Annual subscriptions for postal members become due on 1st October, please renew promptly to be able to take part in the Seed Exchange and retain other membership features. 

It is simple to renew ( or join!) online - see all details here : http://www.srgc.net/site/index.php/extensions/join-renew

For  "online, electronic" members - that is, those only gaining access to  journals  etc online - your  memberships run according to your date of subscription and your online profile page will show when you need to renew: http://www.srgc.net/membership/

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2019 - Updated SRGC Privacy Policy re GDPR - click here to read

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The SRGC website contains many resources of to interest and inform  plant lovers. For instance.....

The Bulb Log

In 2003 Ian Young started the Bulb Log, as a one year project, with no idea of how popular it would become. It is now in its fifteenth year - faithfully published every week.
Bulb Log main page can be found via this link. 
The content  remains much as it always has been - a personal diary covering all aspects of the bulbs Ian grows both under glass and in the open garden as well as any other garden plants and  projects that he may be working on.

The  Bulb Log  for 12th July 2017 shows how everyone should have an island, or two ! Plus updates on the new beds @IanYoung is working on - see it via this link.    

The Bulb Log is  supplemented by a series of videos, listed in the SRGC Forum, here, of course, but also all available on YouTube  - over 100 so far - THIS LINK is  the main page for those videos.

The International Rock Gardener ( IRG )

Since January 2010 The Scottish Rock Garden Club has presented a monthly online magazine for Rock Gardeners which will be posted as a PDF on the SRGC site at the end of each month.
Every issue of the IRG can be downloaded from this page.
Each issue will have a mix of photo based items, our target being a minimum of pots and a maximum of plants in the wild and in gardens, from photographers in different countries.
This will be an international celebration, if you will, of mountain plants in habitat and our gardens.
Our aim is to showcase the beauty of the plants, where they are found in nature or as they are used in garden settings and give brief comments on cultivation.
This venture is coordinated and compiled by Margaret Young with  Zdenek Zvolanek and Ian Young.
The world of rock gardeners is just that: an international community of people with a deep interest in the flora of the mountains and wild places; we hope to provide a regular electronic glimpse of these plants.

YOUR contributions are not only most welcome; we are actively seeking your input which will be key to the vigour of this enterprise.
To submit material for inclusion in the International Rock Gardener This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line "E-Magazine". A full Index to International Rock Gardener, prepared by Glassford Sprunt, is updated each month and is available to download from HERE  

You are most welcome to read and, we hope, enjoy all the features provided by the SRGC. 

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 Links from SRGC to other websites

On this page of the website  you can find links to many websites of interest to SRGC members: other plant organisations, nurseries, seed suppliers etc.

For a List of Specialist Plant Nurseries as a pdf, compiled by  David Nicholson, you may download that HERE.

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The SRGC Secretary is  Hannah Wilson,

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." target="_blank" title="email SRGC Secretary">who can be contacted by email HERE

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SRGC on Social Media

SRGC is now on Instagram too.
Instagram is an easy way to share images and short content. It will also have a link to the website.To get Instagram just simply download the app to your phone or view on a web page.               Our username is srg_club, so you can follow us at https://www.instagram.com/srg_club

SRGC has been on Twitter for some time : https://twitter.com/ScottishRockGC    @ScottishRockgc
 and  also on Facebook :  https://www.facebook.com/ScottishRockGC/   @ScottishRockGC
- and of course, as ever the  SRGC forum http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php  is open to all - it  is archived and searchable  and your contributions are always welcome.

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Volunteers needed for SRGC !!

Volunteer posts to fill:

The post of Chair of Local Group Conveners is unfilled  and  Vacancies  also exist  elsewhwere  in the  Club -  see  more  here in the  Dryas July  2020  -  please get involved - your Club needs YOUR help to continue its  great work.

If you feel you could help out the Club  by putting yourself forward for this position or any of the other vacant positions,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Thank you!

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SRGC Electronic Membership

The SRGC Web Team has been working to improve the system for registration and renewal of the electronic subscription to the SRGC – which is for those who wish to access the Journals etc online only, with no postal communication from the club.

For those with current e-subscriptions you may log in on the new online subscriptions pages using your registered email address and current password to access the Members’ section and Journals. For those whose subscriptions have very recently expired - you too may log in on the new online subscriptions pages  using your registered email address and current password to renew your membership - after checking that all your address details are correctly entered.

Those people wishing to join the SRGC with an electronic-only subscription please complete a new registration on the new online subscriptions pages.

The new online subscriptions pages are here:http://www.srgc.net/membership/

Please also note  that registrations to take part in the SRGC Forum, which is a separate system, must be made from the Forum pages:    http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php

Access for all types of membership applications and renewals are available from here  or from the drop-down menu under "About Us" at the top of the main web page, where electronic members will also find the link to their special Section "SRGC Online Subscription Pages"

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SRGC GRANTS

Various Grants for Students and for Plant Exploration are available from the SRGC ........   see HERE   

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Thank you for visiting the SRGC site, please email via the "Contact Us" button from

the menu at the top of this page if you would like to send us your comments. 

   

For postal contact with the SRGC : please write to

Scottish Rock Garden Club, c/o Richard Green,Cedar Cottage,

Balfron Station, Glasgow  G63 0SQ

The SRGC is a registered charity: SCO 00942

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