Allotments 4 All

I've had a lovely show this year from a dozen red geraniums bought at Wyevale. (Gaaaah! But I had vouchers....). They had a label on saying something like, not to be propagated, copyright, or some such....now I can never get cuttings to grow, so I'm only going to cut them back and overwinter as usual- but I wondered about this? Can it possibly have any force for a private gardener? Someone here must know...

You will ony being growing the same plants so no problem at all. It is if you propagate and give  away or sell plants you will be in trouble.

Thanks Laurie, I really meant how on earth would anyone know if I did grow cuttings and spread them round the village? It's a completely unknown world to me and I thought you lot might know. I mean, they actually look like all the other red geraniums I've ever grown...

I should think that's unenforceable, as far as you're concerned. But if you had a business selling on those plants and were large enough to get noticed, maybe on ebay, or publishing a catalogue - perhaps you'd hear from their sollicitor!

It is done to protect the person who has spent many years producing the new cultivars so that they can get some return for all their work. I have raised daffodils from seed, it is 4 - 5 years to get the first flower, you then have one bulb and you need to work on that one bulb to build up a stock before you can even think about putting on the market. Once others can buy the bulbs or plants with no restriction the price would drop through the floor. I think I was about 12 years before I could think of selling my varieties.