January
Well another season is
upon us, I’m aiming for the 2 major cut bloom classes The National In
August & The British in September. The unseasonable mild winter has
given me a few headaches many of my adult tubers are waking up to early.
I work back from the show dates to determine my starting times, I give
them 23 weeks. If you work that out I don’t need to have my tubers
started till the 2nd week of March for Shrewsbury 2nd week of April for
Dundee. So you can see I’ve already have a dilemma, I do have a few
backup plans but we will look at them if required later. I normally look
for 300 with 150 for each show & this get whittled down to 120 very
quickly. I normally use mainly cutting tubers for the shows but this
year I’m attempting to use 2/3 year old tubers as well. First problem my
adults are piping already, so I’m going to start them off & remove early
shoots for cuttings then select a later shoot for my exhibition flower.
This method will give me an advanced root growth but I’m not intending
to grow in a pot larger than 4 litre. I’m also going to stick my neck
out just a little & grow a few baskets, time will tell if I get one to a
show I have my doubts. Where are we now it’s the 3rd of February as I
write this piece, in the propagator now are all my Basket varieties &
160 adult tubers
My season has started.
