BCSS - Forum

Hugely appreciated!

Should there be a BCSS Guide to Foundationing a Greenhouse to save these sorts of individual queries?

I vote yes

What we need are some serious FAQs here.
Everybody has to search read lots of posts to extract relevent data or make a new enquiry.
This knowledge needs to be preserved and made more accessible
Along with info about compost, cat litter etc etc
Eddie

Sounds like 'direction: library'

EddieA wrote:What we need are some serious FAQs here.
Everybody has to search read lots of posts to extract relevent data or make a new enquiry.
This knowledge needs to be preserved and made more accessible
Along with info about compost, cat litter etc etc
Eddie

Check out the Library Eddie

Bill

LithopsRule wrote:Hugely appreciated!

Should there be a BCSS Guide to Foundationing a Greenhouse to save these sorts of individual queries?

We could but then it would be one less thing to discuss and offer an opinion on.

Bill

I sort of agree that it is nice to actually interact when one has a question to ask, but there are sometimes topics that keep getting revisted and it seems a lot of effort for all the kind people who responded to me to do so again and again?

I personally think a FEW BCSS Guides on really common topic would be a useful addition to the repertoire.

Then people could still ask the questions, but start from a position of having read the previous guidance rather than starting from scratch each time?

I (for one) would like a BCSS Germination guide too.

The "Library" is just a compendium of old threads containing useful info, is it? To me this is NOT quite the same as a "Guide". It is quite cumbersome (and sometimes confusing) to read through great strings of posts, especially for beginners, and surely encouraging beginners is a key aim of the BCSS.

Rather than just advocate, why don't I get off my rear and act, I hear you cry? Well said...!
My current plan is to write a few of my own "Guides" based on the wonderful accumulated wisdom in things like the "Library" and then share freely with whoever feels a summary would be useful (with due acknowledgement for all the kind contributors whose suggestions I am simply summarising succinctly). If anyone else wants to do so ttoo, then we would have spontaneous Guides witten for free...

Yours, E

LithopsRule wrote:I sort of agree that it is nice to actually interact when one has a question to ask, but there are sometimes topics that keep getting revisted and it seems a lot of effort for all the kind people who responded to me to do so again and again?

See I am clever, for instance I often get emails from members of the public about what can they do with the giant cactus in the conservatory, which usually turn out be Euphorbias, so I have a draft email that I just tailor to the individual.

LithopsRule wrote: I personally think a FEW BCSS Guides on really common topic would be a useful addition to the repertoire.

Then people could still ask the questions, but start from a position of having read the previous guidance rather than starting from scratch each time?

I (for one) would like a BCSS Germination guide too.

http://www.bcss.org.uk/seedraising.php

LithopsRule wrote: The "Library" is just a compendium of old threads containing useful info, is it? To me this is NOT quite the same as a "Guide". It is quite cumbersome (and sometimes confusing) to read through great strings of posts, especially for beginners, and surely encouraging beginners is a key aim of the BCSS.

Rather than just advocate, why don't I get off my rear and act, I hear you cry? Well said...!
My current plan is to write a few of my own "Guides" based on the wonderful accumulated wisdom in things like the "Library" and then share freely with whoever feels a summary would be useful (with due acknowledgement for all the kind contributors whose suggestions I am simply summarising succinctly). If anyone else wants to do so ttoo, then we would have spontaneous Guides witten for free...

Yours, E

Don't let me discourage you Euan, have a go and see what you come up with and if it's good enough we'll see if we can't find a home for it, be careful though you might find yourself lumbered with a job

Bill

Thanks Bill and co. but I have looked at the library on many occasions and I agree with Euan on this
The library as presented so far cannot compare with a series of good FAQs or guides.

Eddie

As Bill says, it is the TIME it takes to write comprehensive instructions/information that is the killer...

I had in mind a germination table where there were columns for things like:
Species (or often just Genus!)
Seed lifetime estimate (by rough catalogies like "Long" and "Short", where known)
Germination temperature range (maybe indicated by letters - e.g. A = 65 to 75degC, etc.)
Photoblasticity (light requirement for germination itself) and hence Seed Depth (surface / buried)
Dormancy-breaking (often pretty key and can be a real mystery to non-afficionados)
Typical germination rates, times, patterns for good seed
Relative growth rate (Fast, Medium, Slow)
Damp-tolerance of emerged seedlings (relative measure)
Comments (e.g. inhibited by Chinsol, how to test for good seed, etc.)

We seem to have wandered of-topic from my new greenhouse, though...?