I will be making a trip to England at the end of the month. If possible, it would be nice to collect some OP hips while I am there but I have no idea if it is possible to mail seeds or hips from England. I’m almost certain that it would be illegal to bring them through customs. Does anyone on this forum know what the regulations are with respect to English imports of hips/seeds to the states? I’m probably pretty naive to think it is possible without a lot of permits.
Hi Julie,
If you know anybody in England he can send you seeds.
He need a permit and then he can send a small lot of seed.
Do you know the Small Lot of seed programm - improting seeds into the USA?
Look at this link:
Andrea
Link: www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/plants/plant_imports/smalllots_seed.shtml
Hi Julie,
The Small Lots of Seeds program is relativly pain free but requires a personal visit to a USDA office to show them your driver’s license before you can even apply for the permit online.
Make sure that you submit the correct form when you apply, it is not an obvious choice. Somewhere in the application is a choice for Intended Use, choose Small Lots of Seeds or you’ll wind up having to resubmit your application.
Mail them to yourselve when you are in England. You will be given a set of conditions with the permit, take them literally except don’t worry about the business related to arrainging a broker for forwarding the seeds on or for providing forwarding postage. The postage you put on them will get them to your home.
In case you don’t get a Small Lots of Seed permit in time, I have one and would be happy to have you send them here and forward them on to you.
Don
My thanks to both of you for the information. Don, if it is all right I am going to e-mail you for more information as I may take you up on your offer–the nearest USDA office is more than four hours away from me and is an awfully long drive in order to present a photo ID. Does your email address remain the same as when I contacted you last fall?
Julie
Hi Julie,
My email address is the same as you’ve used before.
BTW I had a look at the Doorenbos starts this weekend (before we got hammered with snow again) and they look to have survived the winter. I have news about the seeds as well, and am looking forward to hearing from you.
Don