As 2024 is the 30th anniversary of The Mediterranean Garden Society (MGS). It seems an appropriate time to recount some of my experiences.
In the 1990s, just as the earliest forms of the Internet were becoming available, I was researching information about the mediterranean climate. This lead me to David Wheeler’s Hortus (issue 23, Autumn 1992) which contained an article entitled ‘Letter from Attica’ by Derek Toms (1943-2003).
The article explained that while gardens and plants showcased in Hortus were all beautiful and desirable, they were completely unsuitable for the author’s garden. Derek also expressed a desire to be connected to gardeners in climates like his. A Greek [snail] mailing address was also included.
I had recently discovered that I lived and gardened in a mediterranean climate (MC) and wondered how I could connect with other gardeners in the same climate. So, from my home in California, I wrote a letter to Derek on my computer including my e-mail and [snail] mailing address, printed it, put it in an envelope, and then visited my local post office to find our how much postage would be require to reach Greece (this was mid-1990s!).
Various others sent letters to Derek, including Trevor Nottle in South Australia who was writing a book on the topic of gardening in the MC. As part of that effort, Trevor mailed Derek a questionnaire asking about his local climate conditions. [people around the world were thinking about the MC at the same time! Was this cosmic resonance? Or mere coincidence?]
Trevor’s book, published in 1996, is wonderful and I highly recommend reading it! (ABEbooks.com link)
Weeks later, we found an envelope with interesting Greek stamps in our mailbox. Inside was a wonderfully written response to my inquiry – somewhat formal, yet friendly and approachable. Derek explained the current progress that had been made in response to his Hortus communication and his concepts for the future.
His ‘letter’ had already resonated with many Hortus subscribers living in similar climates. The concept of Trevor’s questionnaire was adopted and sent to many respondents, including those who had read Derek’s letter in The European, a newspaper published from 1990-1998.
My communications with Derek continued for a few years – at times personal as well as MC topical. We found many similarities in the way we viewed the world.
I admired his project, but I was busy working to create an e-mail forum with the same focus (Medit-Plants). He encouraged my efforts as much as he encouraged my joining his new group, which I did when subscriptions opened in 1995. Receiving my first MGS Journal in the [snail] mail, I was pleased to see that not only did Derek write beautifully, he also was a talented illustrator (I had studied to be a botanical illustrator myself).
Each of our efforts ultimately took off. Well known MGS contributors such as Olivier Filippi, Trevor Nottle, Alessandra Vinciguerra, Gill Pound, and Cali Doxiadis also participated in the Medit-Plants e-mail forum. Along with the MGS printed journal, the e-mail forum became a rich resource for people gardening in our mild winter, summer-dry climate.
Another author who was a member of these two new groups was nurseryman & author Hugo Latymer (1926-2003), living on Mallorca. We ‘met’ online though Medit-Plants. Discovering that he wrote gardening book in 1990, I went searching. When I was unable to locate it in bookstores (again, before we ordered everything online!), he promptly sent me a copy!!
Hugo asked if I might create a website to harvest all the interesting information coming through the email forum. I was already thinking about this and was pleased to have concept confirmation. (websites were still a new thing and none of us really knew where they would lead. Go figure!)
Hugo and I worked together, virtually via email, for several months. Thus, around 1997-1998, a website called Mediterranean Climate Gardening Throughout the World (mcgttw.org) was brought into being [the forerunner of the gimcw.org website].
Seeing the results of our work, Hugo now suggested that I create a website for the MGS as well. Originally, I had included the MGS mailing address on the mcgttw.org site. While I was already a member of the MGS, and had recently become a co-head of our local Branch, I still felt somewhat intimidated trying to represent the Society whose administrative center was 6,800 mi / 10 800 km away! Hugo put me at ease and said he would act as my ‘go between’ for the initial efforts.
We discussed various ideas and he reviewed my work. Hugo apparently presented the developing website to the MGS administrative staff – I can recall many times being asked to come up with clarifications of basic technical details (the public internet was only a few years old, still a mystery to many). While I taught the group about the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the Internet, I also learned a lot about Society’s workings during the process.
Gradually, a general design started to evolve that included the various facets of the Society (because online payment methods did not exist at the time, the ultimate contact information was a (postal) mailing address). I settled into making updates to the website as Hugo forwarded me content from the MGS administrative staff – new issues of the quarterly Journal, information about events and branches, etc.
When we needed to create a ‘domain’ (a web address) for the site, we discovered that our preferred ‘mgs.org’ had already been snagged by the The Manchester Grammar School, UK! Well, since they had been founded in 1515, perhaps that was only fair!
We decided that the somewhat cumbersome but completely appropriate domain name would be ‘mediterraneangardensociety.org‘. I registered the domain internationally and it was pointed at the new website (at this point, I was still covering the cost of both the domain and the webpages).
Later, at the start of 2000, Sally Razelou (1931-2021), the first president of the MGS, emailed me personally about a trip she was planning in Spring to the SF Bay Area to visit her daughter.
During our email exchanges, I asked if she would be willing to speak to our local MGS Branch about the garden at Sparoza (Attica, Greece) which she was in charge of maintaining. She said she would be delighted.
I managed to find a local nursery in Berkeley, California (Aerin Moore’s Magic Gardens, still a garden designer though his nursery has closed) that would be willing to host a slide presentation. Our announcement for the talk included one of Derek’s beautiful drawings!
The talk about the garden at Sparoza was very well-received by all! Afterward, she approached me before departing with her daughter. Sally asked me if my wife and I were planning to attend the 2000 annual meeting of the MGS, already announced, to be held in Sicily later in the fall. When I explained that we felt we could not take the time away from home, and just dropped a lot of funds sending our daughter off to college and with our son to ready graduate to high school.
Sally then explained that the executive committee and branch heads in various countries were eager to discuss the new MGS website in person. To facilitate that conversation, I was shocked to hear that they were willing to pay my airfare to Italy! So, in the fall of 2000, my wife and I traveled to Italy for the annual MGS meeting in Palermo, Sicily.
At the Branch Head meeting, I learned that the Society had been very surprised to now be receiving 50% of its new members through the website!! I proposed various ideas about how the website might pay for itself (these were early days and many groups were daunted by the new cost of a ‘web presence’). It took me completely by surprise that there was unanimous agreement that the MGS would fully support the website costs!
Working closely with what was happening in the MGS overall allowed me to get to know the other Branch Heads and see what types of programs they were creating. I also ‘saw’ many gardens through the photos they sent to be mounted on their pages along with descriptions. It was exciting to see the group continue to grow in various other mediterranean climate regions.
(You may have noticed that the above images are not high quality – they were reduced significantly from the photos provided because Internet in the past were far slower. While we here in the SF Bay Area might have enjoyed decent bandwidths, many of the MGS members the website would be serving did not. Making sure photos were the right size and clear enough to be presentable took up a lot of my time!)
In 2002, at an Annual General Meeting of the MGS in Los Angeles, President Katherine Greenberg (my former Branch co-chair) introduced me to Fleur Pavlides of Greece, who would now be my formal liaison regarding the updates to the MGS website. Based on how much more smoothly the process was for me, I can imagine Fleur was now successfully managing much more of the minutia of that activity!
We had a major challenge when the website provider I had chosen initially (catering to non-profits), decided to retire and sell his concern to a third party. He assured me that the new owners were capable and accommodating.
Things continued normally until, suddenly and radically, they showed their true nature. This new and apparently inexperienced group basically blocked my attempts to renew the MGS domain we had registered, basically holding the MGS hostage while the domain expired! (we were offline for a week or two and had to register our domain again)
I distinctly Fleur Pavlides’ response to these inappropriate actions was “What a bunch of cowboys!” Knowing that this new outfit was indeed in a rural and conservative area of California’s Central Valley, she had no idea how true her statements were!! Eventually, I was able to settle these ‘cowboys’ down, but we changed a.s.a.p. to a new hosting company!
Ultimately, MGS staff concluded that it was too problematic to maintain a website with a webmaster and hosting 10 hours behind. I assisted with the transition of the MGS pages my mcgttw.org setup onto a new web hosting platform in Greece. I also helped tutor my counterparts in Greece in the nuances of web pages as well as the details of what I’d created.
This does not mean that problems did not continue! In fact, there are challenges any website face routinely (most you do not hear about). Please appreciate all the efforts happening behind the scenes to make your online connections appear seamless!
In 2003, it was very sad to hear that Derek Toms had passed. I always wished I could have met this interesting man who had brought together the vibrant and focused group of people who are still pursuing his dream.
The Journal announcing Derek’s passing and celebrating his life featured his drawing of the house and garden of Thomas Church (1902-1978), a famous local San Francisco Bay Area landscape architect. I felt a connection there.
While Derek was known to have been sort of ‘old school’, I can only imagine he would have loved to see what came next.
Meanwhile, The Mediterranean Garden Society’s website has recently been updated for today’s new technologies, making viewing on your device of choice far easier. International membership has been handled online for some years. The website get better each year!
Resources & Links
Toms, Derek. A Letter from Attica. Hortus. 23, Autumn 1992. https://www.hortus.co.uk/acatalog/HORTUS–23–Autumn-1992—-31.html
Nottle, Trevor. Gardens of the Sun. Timber Press, Incorporated, 1996. ISBN 10: 0881923656 / ISBN 13: 9780881923650. https://www.abebooks.com/9780881923650/Gardens-Sun-Nottle-Trevor-0881923656
Hugo, Latymer. The Mediterranean Gardener. Frances Lincoln, London, 1990. ISBN 10: 0711206317 / ISBN 13: 9780711206311. https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/Mediterranean-Gardener-Latymer-Hugo-Frances-Lincoln/4234293064/
Hugo, Latymer. The Mediterranean Gardener. Quarto Publishing Group UK, 2001. ISBN 10: 0711218285 / ISBN 13: 9780711218284. https://www.abebooks.com/9780711218284/Mediterranean-Gardener-Latymer-Hugo-0711218285/
Razelou, Sally. Genesis: The Inception of the MGS. The Mediterranean Garden Society. https://www.mediterraneangardensociety.org/genesis.html
Internet and Website Information
dummies. Understand Internet Basics. https://www.dummies.com/article/technology/internet-basics/for-seniors-understand-internet-basics-159504/ (I love that the URL for this contains ‘for seniors’, being a ‘senior’ myself but having worked in tech – 45+ years – since before it was called ‘Tech’).
bluehost. How Do Domains Work? https://www.bluehost.com/blog/how-domains-work/
wpbeginner. Beginner’s Guide: What is a Domain Name and How Do Domains Work? https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/beginners-guide-what-is-a-domain-name-and-how-do-domains-work
hostarmada. What is the difference between a website, domain name and a URL? https://hostarmada.com/kb/domain-and-dns/what-is-difference-between-website-domain-url/
gardening in mediterranean climates worldwide 