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Hi All,
It has been a wierd season at my place. I took some photos this morning to show why. We had a very cold spell in February, usually our hottest month, and the soil never warmed up. Bulbs in the ground initiated root growth and the season for early flowering cultivars was about a month early. Yet the later flowering, two year down cultivars flowered after the show season. Kebaya, for example, has just died off. A couple of these late flowerers will be shown in the following postings. Remember it is almost November, early summer here.
We had a very warm, dry 6 weeks through August, early September and that affected the bulbs planted in May, June. That warm spell has been followed with wet and amazing cold. I suspect new snow on the local mountains again last night. Hence it is nearly November and I still have flowers opening… In the past I have had poets flowering second week in November but never standard varieties. And ……… ‘No, Peter, they were not planted exceptionally late. I had my planting finished a month ahead of normal.ie by the end of June.’
Dave
Photo 1 A row of Divs 3W-W thru Div 4 and 5 taken 27-10-09
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It certainly has been a weird season. Here in the North the dafffs are long gone as mentioned in earlier postings, Dave’s point about late planting is interesting. Some growers up here (Graham Phillips amongst them) believe late planting brings the flowers earlier. Never tried it personally.
Roses are coming along nicely but will only have a few to show as our perennial enemies, grass grub beetles and possums have made a bit of a mess of the foliage.
Peter