We are having a mild late autumn in Otaki , NZ .
The very early tazettas have been flowering for a while and the first of
the true standards are breaking bud .It,s always nice to have a vase of daffs in the lounge as the
days are quickly shortening and winter is moving in .Here are an interesting mixture that are
enjoying the days of about 18 C and nights down to about 6 . No frosts here yet but quite a few
in the sheltered inland valleys and in the South Island .
Emerald Monarch is a John Hunter seedling from Grand Monarque — x — Emerald Sea .
A good stem with 7 flowers ; pleasant fragrance and nice green eye .
Emerald Monarch
Emerald Monarch
Emerald Sea , Tall , left
Winter Sun is an early tazetta from Wilfred Hall . Not tall but very prolific
and a very strong fragrance .
Winter Sun
First Red is always one of the early openers here . Not exactly red ,
very early for an orange toned flower and good flower rate
First Red
I like the Emerald Monarque very much – it looks to have great potential as a cut flower. Many of John’s autumn/winter flowering viridiflorus hybrids will make great cut flowers when they are more widely grown, especially with the wonderful fragrance.
Hi John,
You are well ahead of us – the first to open will be Max Hamilton’s Tahi – within the next few days. Most of our stuff is not through the ground yet.
We are still recovering from the colds we got in the UK – very sunny yesterday so at least we got some of the very necessary chores started including getting the weeds off the daff beds and mowing the lawns. Grey morning today – hope it’s better in Taranaki where we head this morning. Graham Phillips brought some nice flowers to the NDC Club meeting last week including some heads of Emerald Sea – lovely scent! Also had some nice tazettas.
Peter