A master gardner learns about bees.

[Understudy]

http://www.sthelenastar.com/articles/2007/02/01/columnists/master_gardener/doc45c22a95d3855389566529.txt

A lot of basics but is nice to see some positive stuff about bees.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Cindi]

Brendhan, now isn't that a beautiful little story about the bees.  Nicely written and well told.  Great day.  Cindi

[qa33010]

  I'm going through the Master Gardener course later this month and the state beekeeping course during the same weeks.  Can't wait!

I also get a lot of questions by Master Gardners about bees.  I thought that was too cool!

[Cindi]

qa33010.  You are a lucky person to be taking a Master Gardeners course (and the bee course too).  YOu must have a great quest for horticultural knowledge.  What have you dabbled in?  Where are your interests in this field.

I know a fair amount about horticulture.  Certainly not even close to saying that I could ever be a master.  Just no time for that. 

I ran a small garden nursery at my home for about 12 years.  During those years I propogated by seed and used cuttings from plants that I had grown on.  I had a greenhouse with heat and lights, it was a very fun time in my life.  I learned alot about plants, but never took courses, so again, only hit the tip of the iceberg.

I had a very select clientelle that came back year after year.  The plants, because they were nurtured with lots of TLC were extremely high quality.  I knew that and my clients knew that. I finally gave up the business because it was becoming work to me, not the pleasure of plant propogation anymore.  I could not even begin to compete with the cheap prices that the lumberyards like Home Depot and the big guys charged for their hideous scrubby little plants.  And of course, everyone wants cheap.  So many of my clients no longer became my devoted little bunch and travelled distances to get their cheap plants.

They would in the end wind up paying in the long run more for the plants than they would have paid here.  Because I was doing a small scale business I only had to charge one tax.  The big companies had to charge two taxes.  The old clients would have to spend gas to travel to these larger companies, they spent money on that too.  So, go figure...it was the dollar sign that they saw, and it was too bad.

I still propogate my own plants in my greenhouse.  Every year I want to go to the nurseries locally to get something different for my gardens.  For four consecutive years now I come back disgruntled.  I would not ever my life pay money for the plants that they sell.  They are so inferior to what I can grow that I cannot bring myself to purchase any.  I am not trying to be haughty about this, it is just they mass produce the plants and they are down right poorly looked after, that is plain and clear to see.

This year I won't even waste a moment of my time to go and see what I might like that I am not growing, I will plain and simply just grow what I know I want in my gardens.  Yikes!!!  February 2, almost time to start thinking about getting some seed order ready to Stokes!!  Great day.  Pardon the length of my ramblings.  Cindi