Breeding Season

Yahoo! the delphinium seed trials have begun to flower and it looks like we are in for a very exciting season.

First up are some trials for shorter flowering delphiniums. For height reference bear in mind that I'm all of 5'5" tall. In shoes.

I'm really pleased with these as we have several colours showing good compact and even growth. All without any growth regulators

And a view along the house

Contrast these with some cut flower trials where the delph are taller

Then there are the general trials outside which are just begging to flower. Here we have a good contrast between the tall and the short.

Heres a very deep pink we are using, catching the morning sun.

All in all a good start

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

Facebook for Dowdeswell"s Delphiniums

Janice has constructed a Facebook identity for our Dowdeswell's Delphiniums business and we're in the process of attracting followers. The page will be a place where we can showcase our delphiniums, offer seasonally timed growing tips etc. and keep in touch with our customers and friends.

See  Dowdeswell's Delphiniums

Come and join the fun. Click on "like" beside our name on the Facebook page to become a follower.

Cheers

Terry

Frosty Mornings

Another frosty morning in Wanganui, that's four in succession, with beautiful, sunny and unusually warm days to follow.

While the staff are on holiday this week I'm having a good look around the nursery in the quiet and catching up on a few odd jobs....after the frost has gone of course. And while I'm waiting there are seed orders to get out.

But the frost soon goes so I have to too.

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.

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

Birds,electrical work, garden and back to work,

Wow! Time has flown again and I have a few things to catch up on.

Sunday Jan 3rd.

Robert, seen in the image below screwing up a lighting system, picked me up at 6am and carted me to a place at the back of beyond. We arrived at the back of beyond at around 9am and by 9:20 were starting on a job wiring the implement shed and workshop of a local farmer at Whakahoro (a good place for you to search for on Google maps).

We had no trouble communicating with the male members of the Steele family as they were all Richards. Richard - the 1st, 2nd and 3rd (Grandad, dad and his son) and we just loved the spread put on for lunch too.
Well, we toiled all day until about 4pm when the job was declared done, helped Richard 1st, who obviously wanted a hand with some Scotch (Thanks Richard) and toddled back home. By the way, the homestead had beautiful views of the Wahnganui River and national park but I forgot to take a picture.

Monday Jan 4th








This was a lovely day spent gardening, doing a little work, walking around a lake with my lovely Janice, having mum visit, visiting dad and otherwise relaxing and enjoying a national holiday.

And so to today the highlight of which was seeing a sparrow feeding off the peanut butter and bird seed pine cones that Aimee and Jessica had made during their Christmas visit. I thought they would have had better things to eat but over the past few days I'd noticed the cones seemed to have much less seed on them, but put that down to rain washing it off. However, this evening a sparrow came right up to the one at the window and helped itself. Janice noticed and I took a few shots to prove it so there you are Aimee and Jessica, your bird feeders worked!!!!!!
And what else today?
A visit to Bristol's place to check up on our delphinium trials (no images, top secret) a couple of hours watering the trees planted a few weeks ago, a few more hours working, a little gardening, a game of Catan with Franziska, the young German woman staying with us at present, and soon, bed.

Cheers

Terry

Our daughters Emma, Sarah and her husband Chris and their children (our lovely grandkids) arrived Friday and today. Emma stays until tomorrow and the rest until Boxing Day. Christmas has started! I should be relaxing! However, I have to get up early tomorroy (Sunday) to talk to Mike Darcy of KXL radio, Portland, Oregon (kxl.com). This is what Mike says about the show, their time 11am Saturday.

Delphinium Seed Promotion
Last summer at the Farwest Trade Show in Portland, I met Terry Dowdeswell who is a delphinium breeder from New Zealand. His company, Dowdeswell’s Delphiniums has produced a strain of delphiniums called New Millennium, which are from hand crossed seed. I attended a presentation by Terry where he showed photos of these magnificent plants in bloom. Later that week, Terry was a guest on my KXL show.

As I talked about delphiniums with other gardeners, I learned that Portland gardener and Timber Press Editor-in-Chief, Tom Fischer has successfully grown Dowdeswell Delphiniums from seed. I talked with Tom and he told me how easy they were to grow from seed, the high germination he had, the healthy plants and spectacular flowers. Tom’s experience has been that if you sow under lights in January or February and plant the seedlings out in April or May (bait for slugs), you will probably get flowers that first summer.

Hearing the accolades about these delphiniums, I thought it would make for a nice promotion to be able to offer seeds to listeners at a special price and without the hassle of paying shipping costs from New Zealand. I found Terry Dowdeswell very willing to work with me on such a promotion and Tom Fisher was willing to be a guest and talk about his success with growing them from seed.

After talking with Tom Fischer, I knew I had to have some of these delphiniums in my garden and while I am not one to usually grow plants from seeds, I am going to try this and will report my progress. The photo shown is a sampling of the flowers you can expect.

So, as mentioned on my show, I purchased a quantity of these seeds to offer to listeners. Packets contain 50 seeds of mixed colors. The cost is $7.00. Send a check in this amount to Mike Darcy, KXL In the Garden, 0234 SW Bancroft, Portland, OR 97239. You also need to send me a self addressed stamped envelope and I will send you a packet of these seeds along with instructions. I must have your request for seed by January 4, 2010. "

Cheers

Terry

A few Pics

Here are three images. One of our delphiniums at the Bason Botanic Gardens in Wanganui, another of a really lovely day lily from Nan Ripley's seed and another of a dwarf runner (?) bean we are growing for Mark Christenson who is collecting and experimenting with "Heritage Plants".

I'll leave you to guess which is which.

More tomorrow when I intend to have some R&R

Cheers

Terry

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

The Visit

Today started well with a bike ride at 6:30am. I hate riding in the mornings but this morning it was reasonably calm (only a 5-10 knot wind) and forecast of increasing to 15-20kts later in the day, so I opted for the early start. My legs ached but the main problem was the sun in my eyes on the way home. I'd forgotten about that.

After the ride I made a huge list of tasks to be completed today and I'm happy to say, managed to complete them by blog time. The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the trip to our nursery that the Home of Compassion organised for 7 people, including my mum (rest home) and dad. Dad is in Hospital care in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease and is only able to visit with special wheel chair transport. They came to see all the delphiniums in flower.

Mum has seen the nursery before and remembers but dad's memory has been so far gone for so long that we wondered if it would register. Dad has been a grower almost all his life, growing tomatoes and chrysanthemums mainly, so being round the nursery would maybe catch his interest we thought. Well, it sure did. He was actually smiling and animated for the first time in ages. Twas a joy to behold! Janice wheeled him round while I helped some of the others then I took over the driving. He loved it. Later, in the packing shed, he ate a great afternoon tea and when I moved outside he made a great lurch to follow, which he could not do of course, so he got another ride out to see more delphiniums. It was real cooooooool.


Another item of note in the day was the White Ribbon March against violence upon women.

A few hundred of us males turned up to march up the central street of Wanganui to raise awareness that violence against our womenfolk will not be tolerated. It may or may not make much difference on its own but combined with growing publicity and awareness of how much family violence there is in our society and that it is not acceptable it will contribute to a change in attitude, we hope. So just remember fellas - cut it out! face the issues, be a man and most of all, love your family, they are the best treasure you will ever have.

So, against those two items the rest of the day pales but between the excitement I sure got a heap of work done too, including checking up on our trial delphiniums at Bristol's place. They are doing fine, just like the weeds.

Now I'm going to play a little guitar and wait for some visitors to arrive.

Cheers

Terry

Fun by the river

Friday was a bit of a whirl with pollinating of trial delphiniums to do (see a short white below) as

well as a host of other outside work, a haircut in the late afternoon, fries on Friday at five and a night out at a production of Fawlty Towers (plus meal). The show was great, the meal was very good, the company excellent and the night late. That made getting up at 5:45 this morning to prepare for market a little difficult - but we made it.


Once again there was plenty of entertainment at the market by the Whanganui River and we were especially delighted to see a "happening" develop right behind our stall. A troupe (well maybe half a troupe, what's that, a tro? of musicians, actors, and hangers on started skipping, accompanied by a bongo and a flute. It was a treat to watch them enjoying themselves and inviting the participation of young children and anyone else who wanted to try - no I did not.

Throughout these past few weeks while we have been "doing the market" (my idea) Janice has been a great help doing at least half the work and most of the organising (as always). Thanks Janice, you're wonderful! Only one more to go then we can prepare for our open weekend the following week. Yay!

I think I'll have a lie in in the morning - probably manage to stay in bed till 7am.

More tomorrow I guess as I missed blogging yesterday.

Cheers

Terry

A good day's work

Today I finished weeding some daylilies, weeded delphiniums in the trial grounds, took photos and sprayed growth retardants on a trial of delphiniums in pots. All fun, all useful and that left no time for anything else.




Ok, while I'm waiting for them to upload I forgot to tell you that I went for my 9th or tenth bike ride of the season today. I'm determined to get fit again and am doing 40 minutes riding (slowly at this stage) every day











Cheers

Terry

Breathe promise of merry sunshine

And Merry sunshine is sure something we could do with. This spring may have been good for the bloomin' flowers but it sure needs a little more brightness. Below are the first blooms of our Wedding Day rose struggling to find a little sun.














One of the parents of Purple Passion is in flower in the nursery trial garden. There are a few of our cutting grown clones here waiting to be photographed. They have a real narcissus complex but I guess I would too with a name like that.



I just included the next image for something to do. It's a view, well, of part of our garden. I bet you didn't know that eh!


Today was spent doing errands in town and then tripping over to Palmerston North to have the car serviced. This is a pain and happened because the garage in Wanganui, the only one that services European cars, just went broke. We now have an hour's trip for the service. However there are some compensations. I get my glasses frames fixed ( I refuse to buy glasses in Wanganui as they are too dear compared to elsewhere) and Janice and I get to go Christmas shopping. Whoopee, do I love Christmas shopping!! Year right. Got some nice books though and found another cafe not to visit again.

Ok, 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

Market Day

Another market day and still we have not been blessed with rain on a Saturday morning since we've been doing it - that's 4 weeks. Cool!

After setting up, having delicious market pancakes for breakfast, a cup of coffee and a friand I picked mum up from the rest home and brought her down to join in the fun. It's great to bring her out with us although she always seems to come grudgingly, then perks up wonderfully and thoroughly enjoys it. I had a great time choosing an outfit for her, something that would keep her warm (It was damn cold at the market) and make her look good. An hour is always enough and I returned mum just in time for lunch.

Mum at our stand at the market.


We had a better selling day than last time as we had several potted delphiniums in flower. They punters really like to try before they buy.

Back from market, lunch and before you know it it's 3 o'clock and lawns to mow. I managed to finish at around half past 6 (taking time out to pollinate some test crosses in the middle of lawn mowing) so didn't get a bike ride in today. Must do it tomorrow.

Cheers

Terry

On being a Good Day

Today was another good day on a nursery in Wanganui. The sun shone brightly upon the weeds that were hoed up this morning. The wind has added its drying effect to that of the sun and now,
with luck, there will be a little rain tomorrow to wash in the fertiliser that I spread over the newly weeded delphiniums. What more could a grower want? See before and after images.


Last August in New Zealand was a warm and sunny one. Since then although it has been cooler than normal on occasion, many occasions actually, but there has been a great deal of sunshine too. This has resulted in the delphiniums starting to flower about 2 week earlier than normal and it now looks like we'll get all the first flush of pollinating done before Christmas. Yay! We'll see.



One of the jobs I have to do this season is to finally sort out a stable cross for a bright blue with a black bee. We have one that gives blues with black bees but it has too much variety of colour, too many shades of blue. Another cross has a beautiful blue but gives plants that are too weak. This year we will nail it....please. The experimental crosses from last year have only just been planted so we won't know for a couple of months yet, in the mean time I'm making more crosses.



I've really let my fitness slip over the winter and today was the third bike ride of a let's get fit again campaign. I'm not riding far yet (never do) and not quickly either but I reckon that in a couple of weeks I might be ready to time myself without fear of being too embarrassed. We'll see on that score too. Today my legs protested a bit but least I finished without being out of breath.

This evening was an important one. I accompanied a male friend to a Rotary club in town in a bid to encourage participation in a male march against violence towards women. This will be on 25th November - White Ribbon Day. Let's hope we get a good turnout! See http://whiteribbon.org.nz/

Cheers

Terry