They're growing

The delphiniums are now growing very quickly and looking set to give us an early crop. Last year we tried growing plants slowly over winter to see if they would flower early and pollinate well. This year we are repeating the exercise with other varieties. The flowers in this image would normally be at least a month later.

Below, Edita tending the "spare" mothers and plants for sale when they flower.




We are planting five plants of each of our see lines this year in order to produce somefresh images for labels etc. This is one of them newly planted - note the slug pellets and fertiliser to ensure a fast start.



One of our breeding aims is to produce consistent short plants. The image below shows a short plant now in its second year. It is very unusual to have growth this short in a 2nd year plant and we will surely be breeding form it this season. The trial patch at our nursery has been considerably reduced since we erected the new growing house so I have commandeered it for experiments and moved the main trials to a friend's place.








And I'll leave you with a close up of a vibrant light blue that has been giving me grief trying to fix in a good form with good seed quality, maybe this year?



Please note, no sign of sun. This is truly wet, windy spring weather, nothing like the 35 degrees centigrade Nadeeka and family are enjoying in Sydney!