Episode 15 –
early November
I actually made
a start on this episode in late September so should have finished it
long before now, but I’ve had a lot of things do so I’m relieved that I
have finally got round to it!
At the end of
September, we arrived back home from a week in the sun with my batteries
as recharged as they would ever be and just as well because there were
lots of begonia jobs to catch up on. Although everything was well
watered before we left, they were well on their way to drying out when
we arrived home. It was too early to start withholding water so they all
had a little drink and the later cuttings also had a balanced feed to
keep them growing. Although there was no damage from the storms, the
fleece that I use to line the insides of the greenhouses was badly
shredded in one of them because the fleece had been up for 2 seasons and
had become very brittle, also because I had left the doors and louvres
open, there was quite a mess to clear up. It’s clear that sunlight is
the culprit as only the south facing side was affected – see below
As things
stand now on the 13th of November, the adult plants have
finally decided it’s hibernation time – a couple of light frosts
probably made their minds up for them and the last couple of days have
seen me busy clearing up fallen leaves and stems. The earlier cuttings
are also going down but I’m not too concerned, as they appear to have
produced some decent sized tubers that should keep well if left in the
pots until January. The later cuttings are still growing and getting the
occasional feed; if they can grow until Christmas time I will be happy
enough and will start them up probably mid January.
As the saying
goes, there’s a first time for everything and for the first time I’ve
got a cutting tuber with stem rot. It will come as no surprise to anyone
who has grown it that the variety is Mrs Dan Ramage – see below.
I rooted everything I could from this variety this year so I do have a
reasonable number of cuttings but this set back does make me nervous!
I was working
on my ‘What Went Well’ and ‘Areas For Improvement’ lists for 2018 while
sitting in the sun. This is just two lists that I use to summarise the
season and decide what I need to do to improve next time, in other words
from now on, so while Pauline was buried in her Kindle, I was busy
reviewing my growing year from September 2017 to September 2018.
The lists could
be as brief or as detailed as I want, but I think it is better to
dismiss things later rather that forget about them, so I include just
about everything – well, everything I can remember! So, here are a few
of the items that are in my AFI list that I’ll be thinking about over
the winter months.
Tuber
Storage
Last winter, I brought my tubers out from the garage in early January to
avoid the risk of frost. I kept them as cold as I could in the
conservatory which gets very little sunlight at that time of year and
put them back in the garage if it got too warm, but I noticed later on
that even though I staggered the start up of the adult tubers
–
because my two main shows were 3 weeks apart, it had made little
difference to them by mid March, probably because they had all pipped
before early February. I am going to try using the loft this winter and
have rearranged things up there so I have easy access for my weekly
inspection. Separate start up dates are even more critical this year
with Dundee being a week later and I know that with certain varieties I
will need to use adult tubers for Dundee because that is what I will
have available.
Rooting
cuttings
This is a real mystery to me – over the last couple of years it seems
that my success rate at rooting cuttings has drastically reduced. There
was a time when I thought I would be able to root matchsticks, but now
my confidence levels are at an all time low. The strangest thing is that
when they do root, (the begonias not the matchsticks!) everything is
completely normal for the majority, it’s just that some of them rot and
my list of reasons is long and varied which basically means that I
haven’t a clue why and I really am clutching at straws. What I will do
next year is keep more data about varieties, rooting mediums,
propagators, temperatures etc. to help find out why. This past season in
particular I have tried too many different methods meaning I haven’t a
clue what difference they made but it also makes me suspect that it is
something entirely different that is the root cause – sorry; couldn’t
resist that!
Top
Dressing
I
have mentioned before that I don’t top dress my plants. My logic is that
it impacts on my ability to water the plants correctly. When first
potted up, I check for watering by lifting the pots, because while the
roots are busy growing into the new compost, the surface of the compost
may look dry but it can still be wet underneath, so by lifting the pot I
can gauge what it needs by it’s weight. By the time the roots have
filled the pot, the plant is becoming too large to lift without me
inflicting some leaf damage but by this time I can gauge the need for
water by the compost surface, as at this stage the compost tends to dry
out more evenly. My concern about using a top dressing is that this top
layer will dry out quicker than the rest of the compost meaning I am at
risk of over-watering.
Having said all of that, I have always understood the benefits of the
process – my late chrysanthemums were always top dressed, sometimes
twice a season, but as they were grown in clays I also had the advantage
of being able to tap the pot – a dull sound means the compost still has
moisture and a higher sound indicates that it is drying out. So does it
mean that I am missing out on the benefits of top dressing only because
I am not confident about knowing when to water? I suppose the real issue
here is why do I feel this may be something that my plants are missing
out on? Basically, I think I usually produce enough petals; certainly on
my blooms grown on adult tubers, it’s just sometimes it looks like the
individual petals have not developed to their full potential. This could
be feed related – I know that I am not the heaviest of feeders but also
by the time the flowering period has arrived, my pots are packed with
roots so I think that some additional compost will keep the whole plant
developing and the small amount of additional fertilizer in the top
dressing will contribute as well. By the way, credit for this topic
being on my list goes to Colin Elsworth who has kept on at me about top
dressing for a couple of years now!
Pot
size for flowering cuttings
This
is along the same lines as top dressing inasmuch as I suspect that my
flowering cuttings do not quite fulfill their potential. Talking to
Robert Bryce at Dundee, he commented that some of my blooms were just
lacking a row of petals. I had already been thinking about this
particularly as the ones in question were the cuttings. For the last
couple of years, I have tended to use mainly adult tubers and a few
cutting tubers for Shrewsbury and mainly cutting tubers and a few
cuttings for Dundee. Last year I got away with it perhaps because of the
cooler conditions when the blooms opened slower and also in 2016 when I
had some good Colin Hamilton and a couple of other varieties in
mid September on cuttings. The cuttings are all flowered in a 2 litre
pot and there is very little room at the top of the pot for watering by
the time the flowering period arrives. I’m sure that I pot them lower
than this so I’m wondering if it is just root expansion that fills the
pot this high. What I am considering trying is using a 3 litre pot, but
putting the plant in low down, effectively using a similar amount of
compost that I would use in a 2 litre pot. This will allow me the space
to top dress if I want to and it will also make watering easier. It may
also do away with the need to plunge the pot into a bigger one to
improve stability – a job that I don’t enjoy!
That’s just a few of my ideas for next year, my thoughts may change over
the next few months but I suppose at least I am thinking about it and it
isn’t about change for change sake. Basically it boils down to this – If
you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve
always got.
The
Jungle
Unfair comments are being made from time to time here at home about the
increased amount of greenery that has gradually built up in the
conservatory. This has happened for a few years now and from now until
January, Pauline calls it the Jungle which I think is a bit unfair, so
just to help clarify things I sent her an e-mail with the official
Oxford Dictionary Online definition – ‘A
room with a glass roof and walls that is attached to a house at one side
and used as a sun lounge or for growing delicate plants’ Her reply – and
what is the definition of a greenhouse – you’ve got three of them!
Varieties flowered for the first time in 2018
When
I get a new variety, I don’t always flower it the same year because the
priority is always building up my stock, but occasionally I will flower
them the same year if they have produced a decent number of cutting
early on.
Robert Tyler Murphy
– the tuber I got early last year started off slowly in 2018 and looked
like it would struggle to catch up but a couple of last years cuttings
taken from it got away well and produced two really good flowers –
unfortunately, given the season we have had and the fact that it looks
like it’s going to be a 38 day variety for me, they were both past their
best and edged just before the shows – I grew one each for Shrewsbury
and Dundee. Talking to other growers I also found out that it’s a bad
one for marking but that aside, I was very impressed with the form,
especially the centers and size does not appear to be an issue meaning
it probably could be shown young.
Anniversary
– you don’t see an awful lot of this one around the show benches
although Phil Champion regularly shows it to very good effect. Without
getting into the ‘is it a yellow or an orange, or a bi-colour or a self’
debate, suffice to say that it’s a great colour that brightens up a
board and on a twelve board especially, it can break up the ranks of
reds, pinks and oranges to really good effect. It’s a lovely plant to
grow, with almost variegated foliage and the petals are far tougher than
any I have seen on a tuberous double. Additionally it is perfectly round
with a good centre and a very symmetrical petal lay. Three plants grown
and three blooms shown left me with very little to complain about.
Fantasia
– I didn’t really take much notice of this variety until Ayr 2015 when
Jim Mihulka showed a couple, including one belter on his winning 12
board, but to be fair, he had already told me on more than one occasion
before then that he rated it highly. I only flowered the one plant but
it ended up on my Shrewsbury 12 board. The same thing applies to
Fantasia as Anniversary in that it breaks up the other colours. It also
seems to have naturally good depth so I’m planning to grow a few more in
2019 which makes it a good acquisition as Daisy Trinder,
Lindsey Murray and Beryl Rhodes currently look like getting
dropped from the Team Shepherdson squad!
Joyce
Champion
– a leaf cutting taken last year grew well and I could tell that it had
divided. When I took it out of the pot in early August there were four
pea sized tubers. I potted them up individually and they went on to
produce tubers around 3 centimeters across. They grew vigorously when
started up and three were flowered. One ended up on my Shrewsbury 12
board, the other two were just too early for Dundee. Lots of promise; if
it’s as reliable as Fair Maid of Perth it’ll do for me.
Dena – another one of the newer varieties
around and raised by Dave Coates. A finely edged picotee that I suspect
will take a bit of understanding to get it anywhere near to the standard
of it in Dave’s hands. It also looks like it is going to be less than 40
days with me, so I’ll start with 38 days for next year and I’m sure it
will also benefit from being shown young. Size is definitely not a
problem; I just need to learn how to tame it a bit then take it from
there.
Moonlight
– I mentioned this variety in an earlier episode; I had one planned for
Shrewsbury that didn’t make it because of a bent petal that spoilt the
form with a couple of weeks left to go. It’s still a variety I like and
will continue with it for 2019. I guess everyone uses certain criteria
for growing the varieties that they do but for me they are:
●
Do I like it?
●
Does it grow well for me?
●
Does it have best bloom
potential?
The
first criteria is a given but as long as it also has one of the others
it becomes a candidate. Currently Moonlight ticks the first and third
box, so I’ll see how it does over the next few years.
Joan
Bryce
– I obtained a good sized cutting tuber of this in February and as it
had produced a few early cuttings for me, I let it flower. Fabulous
colour, good form and very round, but it was a bit down on size however
and edged just before Dundee. I need to give this variety a bit of
thought as to how to get a touch more size into it for next year. It’s a
tall, quite vigorous growing plant.
Emily
Rose
– I also flowered this one first time as I had a two year old tuber that
had given me enough early cuttings to play with for next year. I have
always liked this variety except for one fault, which is that it has a
tendency to produce one guard petal bigger than the other, which impacts
on the symmetry of the bloom. I love the colour and it can produce
incredibly neat centers however mine ended up with a poor centre that
looked like it had some sort of damage. Looking forward to trying a few
more next year.
What’s keeping me awake at night?
It’s
less than 40 sleeps to Christmas now and I need to start thinking about
what I want from Santa. A heated mat is top of the list; I had thought
about a sulphur vaporizer but I haven’t seen any mildew whatsoever this
year – even on Flamboyant! The sweet peas got a touch of it as usual but
this was more my fault because I didn’t spray them at the same time as
the begonias were done. Apparently mildews are species specific so
mildew on sweet peas will not trouble begonias etc. etc. I don’t know
where I read this – somewhere on the internet I think so I must look
into it sometime to make sure I’ve got my facts right!
