Spring in the Nursery

Right, the nursery and nursery business is what's been keeping me from working in the garden as much as I'd like but boy, is there a lot to do in the nursery. Growth is very fast right now and plants are racing out. Here's Debbie and Edita doing the job.

But we have another job too. When we built our new growing house in 2007/8 I put white weed matting on the floor to reflect light. This weed matting was laid over black weed matting which in turn was laid over something we call crushed shell rock (hard stuff). We did this because it worked so well in the old house when installed a few years before. Well it worked well in the new house too, until it began to break down last summer. It turned out that the manufacturer had neglected to put the UV treatment into this batch. The suppliers in New Zealand replaced the material but we have, of course, had to lay it again.

To lay the weed matting we had to first remove corrugated iron troughs that we stand our plants on and then remove the old matting - above. This done the installation was be a piece of cake, or would have been but for the support posts for the wire netting that in turn supports the delphiniums. Argh, all those posts!

The posts were hammered into the shell rock (hard stuff, remember) after the original matting was laid. Well, there was no way I was going to remove those so we had to work round them and fortunately modern sealing materials have made a reasonably tidy job possible. It all took time but is now three quarters complete.

And a quarter to go.

This week will be the big plant send  out. These plants are just about ready to go. We try to make most of our sales while the plants are small because that is by far the best time for planting. Unfortunately many gardeners like to see them in flower before they buy. We leave that market to someone else!

And below are some plugs waiting for planting in the trial grounds. Each year we plant five to ten thousand plants for evaluation and breeding purposes.

 The trial grounds are not quite ready yet though. The ground is tilled and we're simply waiting for dry weather to cap it with compost which we will plant directly into, then mulch with wood shavings.

And here are some of  last season's trial beds waiting for new plants. The plants in the foreground are daylilies

Gumboot and petals

It's been a great week or so with plenty done in the garden and a good amount of real work done too.

One of the most interesting things for me was seeing how the trials we are conducting to test our breeding for short delphiniums are looking. These trials were planted in the autumn. It is unusual for autumn planted delphiniums to flower during the winter but that is what a number of them are doing, showing that as well as being likely to be very short (judging by growth so far with one flowering at under 30cm tall) they are also likely to be very fast from seed to flower. This is very encouraging as the market for these plants will demand both of those criteria. We hope to have a range of good cultivars for pot production by the end of this summer.

The image above shows two short delphiniums from the same cross. The image below shows the same short delphinium with a taller one (test for cut flowers - yet to flower) in the background left. The gumboot is 29cm tall.

We have more trials than usual under-way this coming season so will have some really interesting looking fields of delphiniums this summer. We're looking for the short delphiniums mentioned and also to trials of several cut flower varieties too as well as more varieties for the home garden. There is one other category of delphinium attributes we are testing but we're saying nothing about that until we have something really special to announce....or not.

Watch this space over summer!

Cheers

Terry

Clean up time in the Nursery

We've had a few mornings of hard frosts followed by warm days so today I sprayed the weeds on our delphinium trial grounds and spent some time inspecting the potted plants on the holding pad for growth. These plants are mostly dormant now(see image with small pots below..not the still green plants in the seedling trays) but the weed seedlings are not so I will spray them off and put a pre-merge weed killer on to keep new weeds from germinating until the delphinium plants are filling the pots and ready to ship out - so the theory goes. Hopefully I'll have enough time to do that tomorrow. We''ll see.

Winter here. Spring here too!

ne of the great things about growing delphiniums in New Zealand is that by the time they die back for winter they are ready to shoot up again for spring.

In the nursery last season's plants are looking quite dormant but the seedlings sown in April are potted up and powering into spring. Also, close inspection of last season's apparent dormant plants outside reveals tiny new leaves starting to break from the crowns too.

We are now past the shortest day by over two weeks and sunset is 10 minutes later than June 21st. Cool! I swear the quality of light is different too and I'm loving being out in it, pruning our fruit trees.

Tomorrow is Saturday and we will take our granddaughters out for morning tea at a garden centre, maybe bring my mother home for lunch (or include her in the morning tea) have our kids arrive (parents of our grandchildren come to collect them after a week) and enjoy what promises to be a sunny day.

Gotta get the winter oil on the fruit trees.

Cheers

Terry

What a difference a day makes

Yesterday was one of those days where almost everything went wrong. Today was one of those days where almost everything went right. No, I'm not going to speculate about tomorrow.

Because things have gone well there isn't much to blog about as I've spent most of the day in front of my pc writing strategic plans and project management type stuff for the business - all deadly boring unless you are involved, when it becomes extremely exciting.

Actually it became so exciting that I completely forgot about an important Rotary meeting I should have attended tonight and by the time I rang they were well into business and it was too late for me to promote some things I needed to, but there will be time later, hopefully. Whoops.

Of course by 3pm today I was ready for a break so I did another bike ride round my 40 minute circuit and was delighted to find that, even though it was a good training run, I was absolutely not puffed at the end and felt like I could do it again, but was a good boy and returned for more work.

Oh, the ploughing did get done yesterday and very well too.

Enough for today

Cheers

Terry

One of Those Days

Today was always going to be something of a washout as far as work was concerned but I really did want to get at least half a day of useful work done. Ha!

After a dentist appointment at 8:30am I had about an hour down time in town before a massage at 10. Nothing much I could do about that as I needed the dental check-up and wanted the massage. And a cup of coffee in between and an errand or two needed doing as well. Back home by 11:15 and at 11:30 I hear sounds up at the nursery (all staff away today) so I investigate and find my neighbour has been to do a ploughing job but has broken the plough (well, a bolt anyway) and had to go back for a repair job.

Back home I tidy emails etc until lunchtime after which I can get on with writing some business strategy stuff and check up on how we are doing against "The Plan" This will take me until 3pm and time for a run - I wish! The only problem with this strategy was that after assembling all the hard documents I needed and moving to the computer files I find that they are now archived. That's ok. No it isn't. I can't access the exterior hard drive for the backup - neither can Janice on her pc.

Much gnashing of teeth. I decide to go for a run.

The run was good.

The hard drive is still inaccessible.

I putter around while Janice addresses the computer problem and finds that the back-up drive is accessible from the laptop. Phew!

For various reasons (other symptoms too) we reach the conclusion that Janice's pc, now ageing but virus free, just isn't coping any more. The back-up drive is also ageing so we decide to back up some files from the backup drive to the laptop. I decide to call work off for the day and get dinner ready. I can hear a tractor ploughing.

We decide to investigate a new pc for Janice.

Dinner was nice but the pantry is bare so J and I have a quiet shop for groceries in town, come home, read and hope that tomorrow delivers what today did not.

I'll let you know.

Items achieved: dental check up; massage; ploughing (not yet checked); a few Emails answered; mail and business housekeeping dealt with: some advertising sorted; 5.5krun; grocery shopping; blog

And now - The diary Format

This is the new diary format, the latest ruse to get me into the blog again.

Nursery

This week we’ve been concentrating on setting up some trials under lights to see how our varieties respond to night-break lighting over winter. We have a number of good cut flower varieties and also some promising pot plant varieties that we want to evaluate. Our background in growing chrysanthemums many years ago means we still have the equipment to do this and some experience to draw on. We’ll also be conducting a small trial under lights with a heating regime.

The week has also seen the start of some major planning for next season.

Garden

Nothing much has happened this week as we’ve been busy on the nursery front. Janice has however completed her “French Rooster” quilt and the cleaning up work I did in the garden last week still looks good. I’ve still not pruned the Wedding Day rose. The grapes and apples are ready but the tomatoes won’t last long as they have the start of blight and I don’t want to spray them.

Family

Janice is well and very beautiful. I am well and as handsome as ever. Sarah is back into running, Emma had a hard week but is on the up and John is somewhere in Auckland.

Other

It looks like the barbeque I was planning for Sunday will be an indoor job as it may be cool and rainy with a breeze blowing in our faces – not a good look.

Images

I'm having problems moving images so I'll work on that next time

Application for time to slow down

Wednesday passed in a flash. Tractor tyre puncture fixed, seed order to mail order seed company in Russia went out. Checked on trials growing at Bristol's and found oxalis rampant, but the delphiniums that are above the oxalis are doing well. Delphiniums flowering at the Bason Botanic Gardens look great. Will add images when I get a chance. Thinking of putting in an application to God, the Prime Minister, Oprah, Tiger Woods or some other authority to request a slow down of the rate that time flows. I'll keep you posted about progress

Thursday. We have an Internet slow down. I hope that is not a result of my "time" application. No - it appears that our carte blanche to our visitors for Internet use has sent us above our limit. Back to normal at lunch time .... hopefully. Only wasted an hour sorting this out.

Off to spread slug pellets at Bristol's after lunch, still have some spraying and pollinating to do first. more email to attend to too. Christmas is certainly coming.

Note for proof reader...Bason is correct, after Mr Bason. Full stops missed through laziness.

Cheers

Terry

Terry

Open Week End

Wow, nothing since Thursday. Well, it has been really busy.


Last weekend was our annual open weekend when we throw the nursery open to all comers and show off our delphiniums. Nothing unusual happened except that the weather was fine, just the right temperature and calm, something that is very unusual for this time of year. We were extremely pleased.

Janice did most of the work while I juggled the incidentals - like pollinating some trials, fixing some irrigation and generally hanging around trying to stay out of trouble. The sun brought our lots of customers and lots of lookers and we met up with many old friends. All in all it was a successful weekend.

Saturday evening was the Daybreak Rotary Club Christmas do so we didn't have to cook dinner after the day in the nursery. It was a great evening of boulles "petanque" style and charades with rather nice food too.

Sunday was dinner at the Gaskin's place so we didn't have to cook then either and tomorrow is the backgammon Christmas dinner. All in all some very lazy days not in the kitchen.

The delphiniums are now well into their pollination and the bulk will indeed be mostly finished by Christmas. The new season's trials are not yet flowering but some day lilies I bought from Nan Ripley a couple of years ago are beginning to show off so that's what you see in this blog.

All for now.

Cheers

Terry

Visitors from Oregon

We had a visit from Thomas and Kirk yesterday. They have Sebright Gardens at Salem, Oregon and are very passionate about hostas and irises as well as being a couple of nice guys. It was a pleasure to show them around and Janice and I spent an enjoyable couple of hours talking of growing, politics and setting the world to right.
Have a look at their web sites : Mid-America Garden and Sebright Gardens



Today we start pollinating in earnest with three workers starting this morning. There will be another three or four join later, probably next week. As you can see from the photos, there are lots of flowers opening. We'd better get busy.








These are Purple Passion seeds in the making.






Ok, better get on with it!

Cheers

Terry

Good Luck?

Spring in New Zealand is surely a very changeable affair. yesterday we were in glorious sunshine, it was warm and dry. Today is cool, to cold, cloudy and wet. How lucky we did the outside work yesterday. Luck?

















Modern communications and the science of weather forecasting have taken much of the luck out of nursery planning. Even for New Zealand, which has a temperate maritime climate that is incredibly variable and unpredictable, forecasts are now pretty well right.


I use the website of Victoria University, Wellington to get my weather information (see http://metvuw.com/forecast/forecast.php?type=rain&region=nzni&noofdays=7) and compare that with the New Zealand Met Service forecasts (http://www.metservice.co.nz/public/ruralWeather/wanganui.html). This gives me enough data to add my own interpretations to and come up with a very reliable forecast that's a great tool for my business.

So yesterday we were able to weed in optimum conditions and today the fertiliser was watered in. Cool!

Cheers

Terry

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!

Another busy day.

Emails to answer at 6:30am, desk-work for a while after breakfast, up to the shed...I need a better name for that. The shed is the covered area between two growing houses that acts as a packing/potting/office/tool and other work area. This type of area is sometimes called a "header house" but that name is oh, so unromantic (so shed is romantic?) and flat and f-f-f-f functional. One growing house is called "Harrod"s" (there's a story there) and the other "The White House". The new growing house is called the "Bee Hive" so what shall I call the shed? Harry? Right. Good idea. Harry it is, after my dear old dad and why not? Mum obviously found him romantic or I wouldn't be here.
So, up to Harry I go to see Edita and Debbie, walk around a little, talk a few things over, walk back down to the house for some tools, back to Harry, do something else and have another chat to the team, walk back to the house, back to Harry, back to the house for more tools - getting the picture? Back to Harry, no, that one was an invention for effect. So was the previous one too, it just felt that way.
Office work until 12:15pm then off to Palmerston North to see people from "Plant and Food" (scientist and business advice stuff). No wait, forgot lunch. Wolf that down then off to P.N to see P&F. Back home by 5:30pm office stuff til 6:30ish, watch Masterchef sans ads do the blog and off to backgammon....which is now - See Ya!

Another Monday

Sunday was cool and wet but I set the fire on Saturday night so when we got up at around 8am the house was warm and friendly. Played Farmville for a while, attended to a little Email and then drove into Wanganui for coffee and to do a little grocery shopping, stopping off to visit mum and dad at the Aubert Home of Compassion before returning home for lunch.

Dad had just been shaved and generally tidied up for the day when we arrived. He has a lovely room overlooking and atrium with flowering geranium and cineraria and soon to be flowering roses. It's hard to know what's in his mind but I'm sure the flowers would please a lifelong gardener. It was time to move dad into the lounge as we were leaving so I gave him a great ride down the corridors in his chair. He seemed to love it and we didn't knock anyone over!

Mum and dad in happier times:


By mid afternoon the rain eased and I was able to get out into the garden for a few minutes, which of course developed into a few hours, before coming inside for a shower just as Robert and Jennifer were arriving for our usual Sunday dinner date (our place this time). Tonight Janice was on main, Jennifer cooked the veges, Robert brought the ingredients for desert (Janice and Robert prepared it) and I had the real easy job of squeezing the juice out of about 25 oranges. We thoroughly enjoyed our chicken paiella and manzanas asadas.

Today, Monday, saw me into Rotary by 7am, back home and then to Bristol's to check on the newly planted delphinuim trials again. All was well today (3 days since the last visit and 5 days since planting) with only a few plants and labels pulled up. The pukepos are certainly losing interest! Some roots on the delphiniums have now grown from the plug at least an inch into the soil so they will be becoming difficult for the birds to dislodge soon. Then a little weeding of my trial beds at home, some roundup spraying ready for trees, more weeding and before you know it, 5pm and hungry by 6. Right now, a blog, a little more work and Farmville again!

See you tomorrow.

Cheers

Terry

Tomorrow Today

This morning I went to check on the newly planted delphinium trials again to see if the pukekos had wreaked any more havoc....and I'm pleased to say that they had done very little more and that all the labels were where they should be. Could it be that they don't like delphiniums? I really hope so, but won't hold my breath. The rest of the morning was spent preparing sign stands and organising plants for sale at the Wanganui River Traders market tomorrow. This is in effect a PR job as we don't expect to sell much. This is because the delphiniums that we will have for sale in large pots aren't in flower yet and it is the flowers that really bring the customers - instant gratification don't you know?

So, as I'm working tomorrow I'm going to have the afternoon off and wash the dogs, potter around and get myself in the right frame of mind for "Fries on Friday" with Janice and our friends at our favourite watering hole.

I was speaking with Debbie, one of our staff, yesterday and she mentioned that she has a lavender that attracts the bees more than any other. I was interested in this and this morning she brought me one. Isn't she nice!

All for now.

Cheers

Terry

Back to work

Ok, so I missed Sunday. I'm allowing myself Sundays off. I'm not even going to tell you what happened except the the curry at Robert and Jennifer's place was great and the crème brulée and strawberry coulis very nice too. The steps (the last three of about a dozen) I completed in the garden wore ok too.


Today is, of course, Monday. Not only is it Monday but I've just returned form the dentist. Who in his right mind would schedule a dentist appointment on a Monday morning at 8:30am? Me. It's over and done with and there's all the day left.

This morning is office work stuff for me and the sending out of plant orders for the nursery staff. The afternoon will be taken up walking around the Nursery and planning the week's work with everyone, then starting on it. This week we have to ready some large plants for sale, continue taking cuttings, plant seedling trials at a friend's nursery and, well, we'll see this afternoon.

The steps complete:


In recent times my job has taken me more and more out of the nursery and into the office, or traveling with the result that I get far less exercise and far more opportunity to nibble. It's time to do something about it (right after a crème brulée is always a good time) so before the dentist this morning Janice and I went for a brisk walk. I'll do more this afternoon and as the weather is edging slowly to warmer I'll get the bike out and give it a clean too. I might even take it for a ride......let you know.

Cheers

Terry

Incentives!

Four in a row. I might be able to do this. What has tripped me up in the past has been actually remembering to do the blog and that it is a 'have to do" thing with a high priory rating.
How to remember both of those things at a conscious level and both at the same time? Well, some idiot - Ooops sorry, it would have been either Sarah or Janice. Sarah can take the blame because she would have introduced Janice who introduced me and no way do I want to call Janice an idiot!!!! Hang on, that applies to you too Sarah, stop digging Terry....some fantastic family member introduced me..

Where was I? Yes, Sarah introduced me to Farmville. This is an insidious time wasting addictive Facebook application/game that's all the rage right now and making someone zillions. Basically it's legal pyramid selling using your friends on Facebook. Strong minded, or mean folk can avoid shelling out any cash. Our family must be strong minded. And the game really is great fun and grabs your attention. I love it! So....I now have this contract with myself. Once all the real work is done I can sit in front of the screen and play Farmville, but only after completing my blog for the day. As you can see, so far, it works! My farm below:


Today is going to be wet again and our staff are having a day off as they aren't too keen to work in the wet when they can come in on another day and remain dry. Makes sense to me, so I'll just go up to the nursery and nose around in the quiet and attend to one or two of those jobs that are not entirely necessary in the normal course of events but make a huge difference in the long run.....like noticing that there is a water leak and fixing it or rescuing my pet plant from the factory production section and petting it a little. It's amazing what you can find wandering around the nursery in quiet contemplation. Profit lies lurking for someone with an eye to look for it...he hopes!

So, thanks Sarah for giving me the incentive to keep a blog.

Cheers

Terry

Understanding (not) how web searches work

In trying to make our website more visible one of the things to consider is how well we appear on organic, or non-paid searches on engines such as google. You'd think this was easy but hey, to a non techo, it is not. Nor is it easy to understand some of the answers you get from people who you would think should know - like the help desk of your web host.
Just take the question of an ordinary search for delphiniums as an example:
If you are in New Zealand and search for delphiniums you get Dowdeswell's Delphiniums at numbers 1 and 2. If however you are in the USA and do the same search, where are we? Not so easy to answer. A few months ago there was a google tool to allow you to search as if you were in the USA and we came up....nowhere in the first 10. I can't find that tool now and wouldn't you know it, didn't do a search while I was in the USA. Google searches do seem to be more regional though and this is something we have to find more about.
I'm just about to email some friends in the USA and England and getting them to do searches for us. I'll let you know the results.

Of course, if there's anyone out there can help, please drop me a line.

Cheers

Terry

The Days Fly By

The delphiniums are really starting to take off this spring now. We have started pollinating already - about 6 weeks early! The images throughout this blog are of that spring growth.


Reading my notes from a web seminar I attended in Portland Oregon at the FarWest Show in August I have a note that suggests I should update my blog every day. I actually wrote that. Can you believe it? I wonder if I could, well substantially anyway.

Thinking about it, if I have time to harvest a crop on Farmville then I certainly have time to do a blog.

Below are spring cuttings already rooted.

The thing is, we have decided to expand our delphinium seed hybridising business and are working on ways to increase our visibility on the ether. We breed and sell the best delphiniums in the world - the world needs to know how to find us. They need to know that they need to find us. When Janice first built our web-site in 1996 we would always come up #1 on a search for delphiniums, just about anywhere in the world. Now we are lucky if we are on the first page if searching from the USA and UK. As a business that depends very heavily on customers finding and contacting us via the Internet, that is not good enough!

So, we are going through the execrcise of finding out what we need to do to regain that #1 slot from seaarches instigated from outside New Zealand. Blogging regularly is one of the things that, so it is said, works.

Below right is an early flowering, extremely short delphinium just about to break bloom. The bed is a trial bed, poorly weeded and neglected. The interesting delph is centre stage:


One thing's for sure; if I am going to do this every day then no-way am I writing an epistle. An epistle you will not get.

So there, I did it today. What about tomorrow?

What about Farmville?

On being absent

Much has happened in family and business since I last wrote including wonderful times with grandchildren, a business trip to western and mid USA and Canada, Europe and Germany and a sweet homecoming to my lovely Janice who kept the business running beautifully on her own - I should go away more often. Ouch Janice,don't throw things!!!


Also at home was a weedy spring garden.

Having a laptop and Skype made being away far more bearable and it was a treat to be able to speak to, and see, Janice, Aimee (6) Jessica (4) Sarah and Chris (our daughter and son in law) and anyone else who has entered the modern communications world.

Visiting our major business clients was a great experience which was undertaken to check out how they were being affected by the "D" word - Shhhh! New Zealand is regarded by North Americans and Europeans as being a long way(s) away and they were all grateful that someone had made the effort to travel so far to see them. This surprised me as I had only traveled for a day or so (including airport down-time) and that is no more than a long car drive. I guess we New Zealanders see travel as something we just do, regardless of distance as all destinations, except for Australia (and who wants to go there?) are "a long way away". It was also timely, as I arrived when I could check out propagation methods and offer a few pointers to enhance production. Well worth while. Please remember to cover delphinium seeds as this prevents drying out of the young root as it emerges!

Time out at the Children's Garden, Frederik Meijer Gardens, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The most important thing to come out of the overseas excursion was undoubtedly the fact that our communications with clients, prospective clients and the gardening public generally needs to be improved considerably in just about every area I can think of be it via web site, magazine, personal visits, demonstrations, radio talks, displays of plants...whatever! It was therefore great to be able begin work with the VanDusen Botanical Garden (Vancouver) to organize a future display of New Millennium Delphiniums within their bounds. Fantastic.

Another highlight was to see our plants growing in The Butchart Gardens and doing so well that they are removing all their old varieties and replacing them with ours. They are absolutely delighted with the way they perform and who wouldn't be after seeing this photograph of the comparative trial they conducted in their nursery area this year.

New Millenniums are staked and in the background left while the Pacific Giants are in foreground right.

On the home front plant sales this season are going extremely well and seed production stock is so well advanced that we may start almost a month early. Our staff managed excellently in my absence; another reason for me to disappear more often.

Other family matters have been to the fore in recent times too. Janice's mother died a few months ago and we have also needed to organize rest home care in Wanganui for my mother and transfer my father, in the latter stages of Alzheimer's disease from Auckland to Wanganui too. Such is life. I need a rest!