Only a week to go.

Posted March 25, 2022

In Blog, Bulb growing, George Anderson, Spring Show, Uncategorized

It has been a mild week here in Joppa and all of our pots of Caley Show Bulbs are well into their flowering phase. They have spent much of the past week in the cool shade in order to keep them back a bit but from now on they might be allowed to enjoy some more sunshine.
The pots of ‘Easterbrook Sunrise’ and ‘Cameo Frills’ are well into flower now while the pot of ‘Jersey Roundabout’ still needs a week in the sun to bring out some more flowers.
The first flowers are now out on ‘Lancaster’ and ‘Foxfire’ and even if the pots are not fully flowered enough for the 2litre pot section of the show there will certainly be some flowers to cut for the cut flower section in order to help fill the benches.
The two pots of the ‘Scamp Challenge’ have produced some good blooms and there will be difficult choices to be made when it comes to which two ( Gill and George) to cut for the Scamp Challenge single bloom class.
The pot of ‘Haute Couture’ tulips are at long last starting to show flower buds and some colour. Tulips react quickly to sunshine so they will be kept in the shade until one or two days before the show. The Hyacinths meanwhile are still looking OK. They have been in flower now for three weeks and fingers crossed they will still make it to the Show.
I thought that I would put in a before and after photograph of these two pots of ‘Pink Pearl’ hyacinths. They have been sitting in the shade for the past two weeks.
Yesterday I mossed the pots, straightened up the flower spikes by carefully inserting some short thin canes into the flower heads to make them look more presentable for the show bench.
Next week it is forecast to be a bit cooler, good news for me as it will help keep the pots and flowers looking fresher. Colder weather for those of you further north or in cooler areas may need to bring some of your pots inside to speed up their development.