Everyone Needs One of These!!!

You might be like me and you've definitely noticed that there aren't a lot of books, publications or decent printed materials about growing gesneriads. I might hazard a guess and say that one of the last inclusive books about a good variety of gesneriads was published about thirty years ago in the 1970's. This brand new book looks like it will be a wonderful guide to growing gesneriads and if you read about the offer, they are practically giving them away. What a great deal! Their publication chair has this to say:

The Gesneriad Society is proud to announce the pending publication of
its manual "How to Know and Grow Gesneriads". Publication date is
September 1, 2007. The cover price of "How to Know and Grow
Gesneriads" will be US$10. Quantity discounts will be available.

Thanks to a generous donation from the Frelinghuysen Arboretum
Gesneriad Society, all Gesneriad Society members will receive a copy
in the mail with their 4th Quarter 2007 issue of Gesneriads, to be
mailed in October.

We are offering a special pre-publication price of US$5 until
September 1. That means only the next 10 days. So of you aren't a
Society member, or if you are curious and can't wait until
October/November, or if you want to buy copies for friends, here's
your chance. Go to http://gesneriadsociety.org/Shop/knowandgrow.htm
for more information.

--Peter Shalit, Publications Chair, The Gesneriad Society

Books, books and more books

This lovely design done by Barb W. started an interesting search for books. I'd happened upon a title called Floral Design Concepts with African Violets and Other Gesneriads by Ruth J. McCoy copyright 1985. I wondered if I could find this book that was probably out of print. After a lucky bit of looking, I found the usual sites available to purchase used books and I found a site by Nancy Robitaille that lists a lovely variety of African Violet related books, some of which I didn't know about. http://www.africanvioletfun.com/bookpoll/index.html (Please click on the highlighted title of this post Books, books and more books to automatically get this link.)

Nancy's site asks viewers to select the books that they've read and give them a rating. There will be a Gesneriad book poll as well. You might enjoy this site if you are interested in books related to growing, showing and designing with AV's.

What design books have you thought useful or valuable for designing? Let us know. (Thanks to Sandy O. for the great photo.)