Here are few pictures and comments from the ECS meeting this year.
From the US - Jim Michaels and I attended. There were over 35 folks
in total. You won't see too many pictures of me in here - I was behind
the camera most of the time.
Jan's backyard
Jim talking to Jan regarding ponds & winters in Emmen
Another section of the backyard.
Jan's greenhouse
Jim thinking 'Daaaaaaayam'.
C. cordata var gabrowski - I think.
A wider shot...
Several 'cordata' types
Laganendra heaven! I think this comprises of ALL known species
of Lagenendra.
Oh yes - they flower ALL the time. No problem.
This is the yellow spathe form of L. nairii I beleive.
Good healthy growing C. zaidiana
Jim, Peter and Roland looking over Peters photos / log book.
Jan's massive collection of preserved spathes..
A closer look...
Friday morning, we headed into the Fagus sp. forest behind
Jan's home. Several folks wanted to stock up on fagus soil.
Walking down to the prime location...
The prime location...
Jan's showing us where the best stuff is hidden...
Jim and Claus heading back with the goods.
Then we were off to visit Aquafleur - aquatic plant nursery.
Here's a shot of the area right outside the nursery.
The back enterance to Aquafluer
Plants!
Cryptocorynes recently planted into pots from tissue culture.
Echinodorus are also quite popular here - a lot of hybrids I've never
seen before are growing here.
Here's a nice one - Echinodorus 'Purpurea'
A lot of the Echinodorus are propagated vegitativly. Here's the
room where the mother plants are kept. Plantlets develop on the
flower stalks and are pulled off and planted into trays to grow out.
Echinodorus sp. in bloom
Echinodorus 'Africanus' plantlets. We brought these back with us.
Echinodorus 'Purpurea' plantlets. We brought these back with us.
There were also a lot of Anubias. Some varieties labels Anubias sp.
with leaf shapes I'd never seen before. These are also tissue cultured
and grown out in massive quantities. All these rows are growing
Anubias species. This is only one section.
They also had a room that was very frequently misted - maintaining
a very high humidity level. Here, they were growing mosses emersed
on coconut shells. They also had java fern, pellia and riccia growing
attached to driftwood in here.
A nice new microsorum. We brought this back with us.
A fairly brightly colored varigated C. wendtii. We brought this back
with us.
Some of the crypts growing there were in flower. Can you ID it?
Then were were off to Piet van Wijngaarden's home to see his
crypt collection. Piet can most certainly grow them. Lush and massive
growth.
Here's a close up of one of the fish he's got in his planted tank.
In one of many growth trays, C. striolata (swwwwwwwwwweeeeeet)
Just look at the nice pattern and the healthy growth!
Jim probably has more pictures from Piet's setup - there were too many
people walking around in there for me to get a decent shot of anything
and I just gave up.
Moving along - on the ride back to the hotel we stopped to get
the essential picture.
Back at the convention Saturday night, just prior to the main
speaker session starting up.
From left to right: Neils Jacobsen, Romeo and the gentleman from Gula.
Couldnt remember ALL the names - there were 35+ people there!
From left to right: Piet van Wijngaarden and Jan Bastmeijer.
Piet telling Jan - "These folks from the US are completly NUTS!"
Closed container culture of C. fusca and I beleive C. minima.
A lot of folks are using this method now which they say is very stable.
Once in a while, new fagus soil is added to provide nutrients but other
than that, the bottles remain closed. Not to be kept on window sills -
but rather under flourecents.
From left to right: Mr. Bogner and Jim.
From left to right: Mr. Bogner and the only brown guy in the Netherlands.
From left to right: Jim and Niels Jacobsen
From left to right: Roland and Jim
Plant market! Free plants for everyone! Most of the plants came
from Niels collection. An insane amount of plants. Insane!
From left to right:
Kai in the brown shirt in the back.
You can see a glimpse of Roland.
You see Stephan's back.
Martin from Tropica standing infront of the screen speaking with Neils.
And the lady from Gula with a bag of Laganendra nairii I believe.
Peter talking with Xema.
Kai commenting on the specifics of some of the plants on the
table.
Roland checking out the available plants.
From Left to Right: Claus Kettner and Fredi Wasser.
Fredi Wasser - the name should ring a bell - since this man's
name is on a lot of recent collections. He doesn't grow too many
crypts - just goes to SE Asia every year to collect! One of these
years - I'm going to tag along!
A wider shot of the room
That's most of the pictures I have. Jim's got more. There was one day
that I thought my camera battery was done - turns out that the
memory card just wasnt seated tight enough - so I didn't get any
pictures from that day.
A few notes from the experience:
Most of the folks there are focused in growing healthy plants and getting
wild collected plants to flower initially for ID purposes / see variations
from different collecting locations. Another priority is the
long term cultivation of collections. Some plants here are
runners of plants collected decades ago! These guys can grow crypts!
Overall - the trip was very enjoyable and it was refreshing to see
how environmentally concious the folks there are. Everyone was
very friendly and even though some of them didnt speak very
good English, they made an extra effort to speak with us.
Next year's convention will be in Vienna. If you can make it out there,
I highly reccomend it. I know I'll certainly try and attend again next
year.
ECS 2007 - an eye opening experience 
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