December
The tubers are inspected
every of couple weeks throughout the winter to make sure that any rot is
spotted early and can be removed. On checking you may recall I failed
last winter and lost a lot of my mature tubers not realising they had
rotted although I had been looking at them quite often. As it was
pointed out to me young tubers can survive with the callus being left on
but the more mature tubers do rot where the old shoots came from the
previous season so I learned the hard way to make sure I find these
calluses as there being more than one on mature tubers. I was lucky
being supplied with some really good stock to start my 2014 season after
other members reading of my tuber losses. All my cuttings have finished
and these tubers are in the garage along with my mature tubers so no
electric propagator or heaters running.
This is the end of the
growing season in my greenhouse and garden sharing my growing details I
hope you have enjoyed the diary and found it helpful in some way. This
is only the way I do it and as always if your way works fine for you
carry on with that way. As I have mentioned I’m no expert just a keen
amateur in growing these plants and not a seasoned grower but do enjoy
these plants colours and the attention they attract when grown to their
full potential.
Through the year I recall a mistake with using paint to try and
shade the greenhouse roof with emulsion paint which didn’t work they
must have changed the ingredients over the last 30 years time does fly.
I didn’t show you the mess that was produced with all the bits of dried
paint all over the slabs flower beds etc but ha ho you can’t win um all,
I hope if you did try the white paint you were able to clean up your
mess. I have spoken to one person who found out it didn’t work.
Hopefully the compost formulation I use the weather and temperature
along with all the other factors involved with growing will be
favourable next season then I can try to defend the championship at the
National at Shrewsbury Flower show in August. There are several pictures
I have taken over the past year which I thought would brighten the page
for my last time .Fig 1 shows inside
the greenhouse of Terry carr what a cracking display in one of his
greenhouses. Fig 2 and 3 shows a
small selection of plants on offer when we visited Vibrex nursery in
Warwickshire which is open to the public during week days. The pictures
Fig 4 to fig 10 shows a selection
taken in my greenhouses this year.
Have a good new year and perhaps try growing some of these flowers
if you don’t already and maybe enter a show I may see you at Shrewsbury.
Ian Rhys Williams
gave me a call reminding that trophies need to be back in at the AGM in
January which I would be unable to attend; this is so they can be
engraved ready for next season. That I know of there are no members
close to me that would attend the AGM but fortunately I was making a
trip to Yorkshire last weekend so I phoned our President Jeff Rhodes we
were able to drop them off and had a welcome cup of coffee to break our
journey. He showed Jane and I his collection of begonias overwintering
in his insulated and double glazed green house maintained at a
temperature of 50°f .Just leaving and he said come and take a look at
this and as you can see from Figs 11 to 16
all the equipment and items he uses to produce the society begonia
flower supports also giving us a quick demo. That’s one thing I learnt
all the parts are sourced bent to shape and assembled by Jeff and not
just bought in readymade from a manufacturer what a great job he has
been doing for many years.
Good luck to members of the National Begonia Society and wishing
you all well for the fast approaching growing season.
