George and his progress to the Caley Spring Bulb Show!

The pots of Caley bulbs have all been staked where necessary and put outside in the shade to hold them back a bit because they have been making good growth and all are showing flower-buds albeit at different stages of development.

The pot of ‘Jan Bos’ hyacinths has benefitted from sitting in the shade and is just starting to show colour in the flower spikes.  The ‘Pink Prince’ tulips are stretching up and will remain in the shade meantime. If I put them in the sunshine they will develop even faster.

The pots of the Caley Challenge are at slightly different stages with one slightly more advanced than the other.  However both have flower buds showing and appear on track to flower in time for the show.

The pot of ‘Kiwi Sunset’ is well budded and will be in flower well before the show date so will need to be kept cool and shaded to keep the flowers in reasonable condition. ‘Sabatini’ meantime looks to be on course and might flower about the week before the show.

The pot of ‘Dolcoath’ is well advanced and has lots of buds evident. There should be at least one flower to cut for the cut flower section with the pot and its remaining flowers going into the pot section. The variety ‘Tru’ is a bit slower that all the rest and might need some heat later in the month just to get it to the correct stage for the show bench.

All the pots will remain outside for the next week at least and be given a weak liquid feed of a high potash fertilizer.

March can be a month where there can be dramatic weather swings. Look out for winds and gales and keep an eye out of slugs which if the weather is mild will start moving around.

Happy pottering

Showtime in FOUR  weeks .

Good luck

George