The Gift economy in building community

[iris lilies]

Another thread mentions this so I'll start a separate thread here, posting my theory which is basically: in the gift economy you can get craploads of stuff that you don't really need, but it's there.

Iris giveaway:

It's time to dig and give away iris and I've got wheelbarrows full of it. These are nice iris, modern named hybrids for which I pay $150 - $300 annually to get the new introductions. So after giving about 15 plants away to friends, after calling my neighbor who does professional landscaping with an offer to give her iris, I will now have 10 wheelbarrows full of prime, high end iris going to the compost pile unless I can find a home.

So likely I will pile it all behind my fence and put a note out on Craigslist about free iris. My dilemma is always this: If I keep the flower heads on the plants people like that and want to see the flowers. Yet, that is not at all healthy for the plants and they should be cut and trimmed, which I am willing to do.

Do not suggest any other method to me of getting rid of these things. My local Iris Society would be horrified that I am giving them away in bulk like this and they want me to dig and clean, mark, store, and make a list them for the iris sale in August. No. I have no time for that, NO.

[Spartana]

This is one reason my sister and I (and friends and other family) have stopped gift giving. Too much stuff none of us needs or wants. We still mark a special occasion but it's usually with a meal out and an "experience" kind of gift rather than a material gift that will eventually end up in the trash.

As for giving away growing things, you might want to check with a local nature center or park. They'd probably love that kind of donation and most likely will pick them up too. Or a nursery or plant care business. Sis is still cleaning out all her huge amount of stuff (part of the reason we took the house off the market until she can get rid of some things) and have a big Salvation Army truck coming by this morning to get a lot of her old furniture and stuff. She'd like to sell it on Craigslist but it just takes too much time and she's rather use her free time doing something fun.

[Float On]

Wish I had time to drive up to St Louis IL, I'd gladly put in some garden hours with you to be able to take a wheelbarrow full of iris back to my house. Iris love our glade. I've been walking daily at the old Owen homestead where he planted thousands of iris along the bluff over Taneycomo, it's been stunning this week. I have a lot from several different homesteads (given to me by the families, not stolen) plus a few that I've bought.....but I always want more.

[ToomuchStuff]

Do not suggest any other method to me of getting rid of these things. My local Iris Society would be horrified that I am giving them away in bulk like this and they want me to dig and clean, mark, store, and make a list them for the iris sale in August. No. I have no time for that, NO.

Wish I were closer, I would be taking a lot of it off your hands. (they were always around here, until the city came through tree trimming a few years back and sprayed killer along where they grew). However, I wasn't going to suggest something you already mentioned yourself, giving them to the society for the society to do that and raise money for itself. No I wouldn't suggest that.;)


Too much stuff none of us needs or wants.

In my best Lurch voice, You rang?:laff:

[Dhiana]

Take a picture of the iris with the flower as one would want to see them. Then do the trimming as necessary. You'll have the photo for the ad and the customer will have a better idea what they are getting.

So the plural of iris is iris. Learn something new everyday :)

[iris lilies]

Take a picture of the iris with the flower as one would want to see them. Then do the trimming as necessary. You'll have the photo for the ad and the customer will have a better idea what they are getting.

So the plural of iris is iris. Learn something new everyday :)

We iris people call it "iris." It may technically be irises, but to us it's just iris.

[River]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUPZvU1y_v0

The topic of gift economy (or gift ecology, if you prefer) is hugely important! I think Charles Eisenstein (http://charleseisenstein.net/) has it right, true community only exists where people are giving to one another. Where everything is absorbed into an exchange economy, real community does not exist. So if we value community, we must value the role of giving in our lives.

If by chance there are folks here who live in Santa Fe, New Mexico... The Santa Fe Gift Network (a project of MOSI) is seeking to create a gift circle in Santa Fe.

Details: http://www.meetup.com/Mindful-Somatics-Santa-Fe/events/215086112/

[catherine]

Yes! Welcome, River! Another Charles Eisenstein fan! Great to meet you! I have read three of Charles' books, and I'm in the FB group of like-minded people "The More Beautiful World"

Welcome. I'm not in Santa Fe, but so great to see what you're doing there with the gift circle!

[Tussiemussies]

Thanks River for your inspiring post. Really liked the video and it would be nice to have something like this in our town. We do have free cycle here which you can post give and take items but there is no sense of community with that. I will have to look under meetup to see if there anything similar there....

Thanks Catherine for mentioning that Facebook group. I put in a request to join it I'd like to see what it is all about...

[River]

Hi catherine (http://www.simplelivingforum.net/member.php?169-catherine) & Tussiemussies (http://www.simplelivingforum.net/member.php?97-Tussiemussies).

Yes, that video was indeed inspiring. It's a fine example of how we can best learn about a thing, sometimes, not by being told about it but by observing it in action.

I'm hoping that gift circles will become very popular everwhere. They answer to so many of our needs! They are an opportunity to connect with good people and create genuine community together. And that's perhaps even more important than the other needs met via gift circles!

I'd definitely encourage you to search for an existing gift circle in your communities. And if there isn't one already, I'd encourage you to explore initiatning the creation of one. We can discuss how to do this here, if you like. Meetup.com seems to be a useful tool for such things, but there may be other good ones -- some of which don't cost money -- e.g., Facebook, Tumblr, etc....

Any ideas?

[Aqua Blue]

Is there someone in the iris society interested coming, digging and labeling etc for the sale? That way they would be put to a good cause. Also would the iris society consider "grab bags" where you get what you get?

Out newspaper also has a free section to list.

[iris lilies]

Is there someone in the iris society interested coming, digging and labeling etc for the sale? That way they would be put to a good cause. Also would the iris society consider "grab bags" where you get what you get?

Out newspaper also has a free section to list.

One of the problems is that my labels are mostly gone after my garden was ravaged last year by a group of children. I will have to spend hours putting them back next year, I just did not have time this year tp make new tags and match them to plants. That's why they are not of use to our Iris Society, they aren't named. We don't sell unnamed iris. But I would guarantee them all as being new introductions of the past 15 years because that is all that I buy, and most are from the past 7 years.

So that's why my "dig them and put a notice up on Craigslist" is my best solution until I get all of the labels set in more permanently. I did the big iris purge this year to keep them healthy, so the beds will be fine for another 2 years.

[Packy]

Why can't you just dig up and sack up some of them Iririses's, and send 'em to the various people on this board who would take some Irirese's if logistics weren't a prollem? Just put 'em(the Iriseses') in a pail, and send em when the weather isn't too cold or too hot, yet. See?

[iris lilies]

Why can't you just dig up and sack up some of them Iririses's, and send 'em to the various people on this board who would take some Irirese's if logistics weren't a prollem? Just put 'em(the Iriseses') in a pail, and send em when the weather isn't too cold or too hot, yet. See?

I might do that when I retire. This year I barely had time to thin beds and I didn't much care where the thinned plants ended up.

[rosarugosa]

IL; Isn't there any kind of spray you can get to keep ravaging children out of your garden? Something organic of course, but still effective - perhaps with pyrethrins? ;)

[iris lilies]

IL; Isn't there any kind of spray you can get to keep ravaging children out of your garden? Something organic of course, but still effective - perhaps with pyrethrins? ;)

These kids moved on a couple of months after destroying much of the iris crop of 2013. They are of "the urban poor" social group, and given today's environment of civil unrest in my city I won't be coming remotely close to any action that's confrontational with them or their peers.

Besides, the kids are gone, the iris plants survived as I knew they would, and now the only thing missing are the plant labels. and that is recoverable.

[kib]

Liquid fence. It smells like a combination of garlic and rotten eggs. For Deer, but would probably work for "Dear Little Ones" as well. :~)

Bisbee had a volunteer gardening group called Bisbee Bloomers that did a lot of city beautification projects, they would have been thrilled to death with a contribution like those irises. I wonder if you could make a charitable donation to some group that could either plant or sell them.

[ToomuchStuff]

Iris, what kills them? We used to have a LOT more then there are around here now. I know some people dug them up (traditional item in this neighborhood), and some ground errosion caused problems, but I think most of mine where killed when the city came in and started spraying everything around where overhead lines were, to keep down the tree of heaven weeds. (too common because a neighbor has two intermixed with weed elm tree's, not the old dutch)
On my list is to eventually repopulate them.