Not, it's not a conservatory but what is it?

[ianinfrance]

Hi,
I've lost a word. You know how there are places where they house a collection of plants or vegetables so they don't get lost. What is this called? I don't think it's a museum, or a conservatory - though that would be the literal meaning of the word. So what ever is it?

[StokeySue]

Seed bank?

Conservation centre?

Archive?

Wakehurst Place?

[StokeySue]

The one at Wakehust (Kew in the country) is the Millenium Seed Bank

http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/save-seed-prosper/millennium-seed-bank/index.htm

[aero280]

There's the Svalbard Seed Vault. http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/lmd/ca ... vault.html

Or do you just mean a Herbarium? Arboretum? etc.

[scullion]

the freezer?


- ah, no, stuff always gets lost in there!

[StokeySue]

I was very puzzled the first time I heard of someone studying music at a conservatory


I had visions of Hoffnung's Palm Court Trio

[earthmaiden]

Heritage seed bank ?
Botanic garden ?
Glasshouse?

[4dogsagain]

Botanical garden?

[spotteddick]

Green Grocers

[Suelle]

Genebank?

[Luca]

cryogenic seed bank ?

[suffolk]

Are you thinking of various National Collections ... as in 'the National Collection of snowdrops' here http://www.brandymount.co.uk/intro_page.html

[Kavey]

Terrarium, orangerie?
Those are the only two I know myself.
Then I googled those and also got vivarium.

[ianinfrance]

Hi all,
Sorry to have disappeared into outer darkness. Had a dinner tonight and the guests were having a great time, so didn't leave till about 11.15!!

Thanks for your suggestions. Seed bank might be good, were that to be what they were doing. But I get the impression that they are preserving the vegetables by growing them. I don't think they are keeping any National Collections, in the way that happens in the UK. Botanical gardens (like Kew for example) is pretty good, but doesn't really limit itself to garden vegetables. I have a nasty feeling there's not a simple answer. Herbarium (possibly qualified) might well the the nearest to what they are doing. For those who read French, this is the page http://www.chateaudevalmer.com/jardins- ... ype=valmer (the third item of news) which uses the expression. I'm probably being far too pernickety.

[spotteddick]

my dad had a cold frame at the bottom of the garden, he grew all manner of things in that, slugs, snails, greenfly you know the things that I kept as pets as a kid

Glad you had a good time, without us

cheers

Dick

[Mamta]

Plant conservation?

[StokeySue]

les parcelles du potager-conservatoire

the plots/beds of the kitchen garden conservation project?

I know it is a lot more words but it sounds suitably like heritage speak! I think the apparently extraneous word "project" make it sound a lot more like contemporary English

[BelgianEndive]

I found a translation on line and it appears to be "gene bank":


Malgré cela, la direction du conservatoire de Gatersleben justifie les essais OGM avec l'argumentation que la collection de plantes est propriété du conservatoire et qu'il peut donc en disposer librement. biopiraterie.de

However, the Governing Board of the Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) justifies the genetic engineering experiments in Gatersleben with the argument that the plant collections are now the property of the gene bank which can therefore [...]

[hickybank]

Perhaps we should invent a name for it.
"The National Plant & vegetable Bio Conservatorium"
Terry

[ianinfrance]

Thanks again all of you.

What I finally decided on was " a collection of old varieties of garden vegetables",which won't raise any false hopes from serious enthusiasts. Unfortunately, I know the sort of mentality that often creates these things. "throw in everything you can think of in the hope it might attract someone." It's the way variety TV works.

I'd be astonished if it were to be anything of national importance in France. (Cynical? Me? No never.

Anyway the translation is done and sent off, and I've finally (after 10 months or so) managed to go through my entire wine cellar, to bring my database up to date. Slightly depressingly I have managed to let a lot of bottles get badly too old. I can see there will have to be some serious oeno-gerontophilia taking place in the Hoare household.

[BelgianEndive]

.........

[StokeySue]

Anyway the translation is done and sent off, and I've finally (after 10 months or so) managed to go through my entire wine cellar, to bring my database up to date. Slightly depressingly I have managed to let a lot of bottles get badly too old. I can see there will have to be some serious oeno-gerontophilia taking place in the Hoare household.

Suely after only 10 months slippage they won't be too far gone? Some of them might even be very pleasant surprises (like the three bottles of 15 year old Moulin a Vent we found under the stairs and which were )

[ianinfrance]

Surely after only 10 months slippage they won't be too far gone?

Would that were the case (as the senior Inland Revenue officer said about his Miss Ford, when I suggested to him that she was contradicting herself because she was young and inexperienced)! Sady, I haven't been as assiduous as I should be about checking my wine list, rather than just grabbing bottles. The net result is that I've got - for example - quite a few very minor clarets from 1991 - and worse, two bottles of 1988 Sancerre (which one normally drinks young). What we'll be doing this year is therefore to bring upstairs one bottle of OTT red wine, and a back up of something less exciting, so if the elderly one is undrinkable then we've got the other to fall back on. As for the white, I'll do a similar sort of thing, but with a back up of an open wine box instead. To be honest, I'm not best pleased with myself - a 1972 kabinett Mosel really should have been drunk 37 years ago!