I have now edited this piece of work so hopefully it reads properly and makes sense, I hope you find it interesting
—– Original Message —– From: “Roger Braithwaite”
Hi All Just to follow on from Peter Ramsay’s point about John Lea and Clives Postles > growing using a series of mini greenhouses. This is my way of getting the late varieties to flower at the same time as the early ones. As you can see it is a very big clotch 12′ x 50′. If the weather stays dry it is my intention to have the clotch erected by next Monday and it will stay over the tops of the daffodils until late Feb -early March or until the majority are 4- 6 inches high.
Again this is the only way I can get the buds early enough to give them time to develop to their full potential, before the seasons over. I also agree, with only a few exceptions the best flowers do come out of the ground. In the case of bulb performance the following year when grown in a pot against in the ground, I have found that if the bulbs do not suffer stress after flowering and it has had enough nutrient during its growing cycle, in most cases it will produce a top quality exibition flower. As one of my observations, if the flower has been cut the bulb it can take between 2-3 years to produce that size and quality flower again, also I believe the same thing happens to bulbs that are grown in the ground, if the flower is cut. (There’s an experiment for you all, plant in the ground a few bulbs of the same variety from div 1-4, cut off the flowers and stem on half of them, the same length as you would with your show flowers and on the other half do not cut any of the stems. Make sure you identify those that have been cut from those that have not been cut, then wait to next year and see how they perform) I think you will be surprised ! The bulbs in the ground ( if the flowers have not been cut) will generally perform year in year out, the only time I have some problems is when the offset starts to develop along with the main bulb, the main bulb can sometimes be smaller than the one that was planted. I have taken the time to weigh the bulb and offset combind they have increased in weight quite substantially. Again my educated assuption this is because both the bulb and the offset has had to compete for moisture and nutrient the young offset has had the lions share of both. Because I grow on a one year down cycle, I think I see more of this than if they were grown on a two year cycle, then I think the two bulbs would grow equally and at lifting time you would end up with the main bulb being much bigger that the offset, but the offset would also be good and produce a top quality show flower as well. I would like to know your views and observations on this subject. > > These pictures were sent with Picasa, from Google. > Try it out here: http://picasa.google.com/ >