YEARLY REVIEW 2003
I have already started to lift my stock and I’m not all that impressed on what
I’m finding. There are plenty of roots but not much tuber. Perhaps the reason I
never get the fat tubers everyone likes, is too much phosphate. Okay I know
phosphate makes root growth, but too much over the course of a few years could
well make to much fibrous root, at the expense of tuber. Also why had my
seedlings made such good tubers? I’ll answer that, they hadn’t had a yearly dose
of phosphate in the form of bone meal, just a light dressing of Growmore and
I’ve only been using the patch for two years.
I was thinking how my friend Harry Lawson from Hartlepool plans his feeding
programme each year, okay I know he grows chrysanthemums, and chrysanthemums
don’t make tubers, but what he says about the build up of phosphates got me
thinking. After the initial base dressing, Vitax Q4, or a similar organic
balanced feed, he uses a liquid feed consisting of nitrogen and potash, at a
weak dilution rate. Should the weather be over wet, he thinks nothing of giving
them just potash. Likewise during a prolonged dry spell, he switches to one of
pure nitrogen; all of these liquid feeds are given at a very low dilution rate.
It’s all there in his fascinating book `Chrysanthemum Breeding Made Easy’ and at
six quid it’s remarkably cheap. The price works out to twenty pence for each of
the thirty years, he’s been breeding, and every penny is for the society, and
flower he loves. If there’s anyone interested in purchasing this smashing little
book, they can go to Harry’s web site, you’ll find a link on my home page. The
book and the site are as exquisite as were his exhibits, all those years ago,
when we were young. Although I knew him then, he didn’t know me, I wish I’d have
spoken to him, you never know, I might have been breeding chrysanthemums now,
instead of dahlias. I, like everyone else, was just an admirer of his wonderful
flowers. Photo
As I said the book is packed with everything a budding hybridist needs, and his
methods can be applied to anything from Artichokes to Zygocactus, the principles
of breeding are just the same, and if I can grasp it any one can. The only other
feed he gives, twice during the season is a feed of Maxicrop. I’m determined to
try out his theory next year, because I’m sure I have too much phosphate in my
soil. After all I’ve been putting on a dressing of bone meal every spring, and
then adding even more every time I use a base dressing, or balanced liquid feed.
We get in the habit of doing things one way, when we should be trying something
different. I shall always be grateful for the help I’ve received from Harry
Lawson, but don’t take my word for it, read the book.
As for the varieties that did well in 2003.
Charlie Dimmock:
Was of course my star cultivar; it seemed to get better and better as the days
got cooler.
Willowfield Matthew: Small/Miniature Decorative.
This was another that was superb, I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned more in the
press.
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Last but
not least, that smashing Gallery dahlia.
Art Nouveau: Double Orchid. (Best little dwarf bedding dahlia in the world)
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This flowered with me, from the middle of July, until I lifted it in late
November. Okay it isn’t a show dahlia but what a show it puts on. I have several
seedlings, using this type, from a line I’ve been working on for the past two
years, but none come up to Art Nouveau for sheer flower power. I’ve yet to find
out if the name Gallery is a trade name, or another group name. If it’s a trade
name, I’ll have to invent a name for my group of seedlings, unless I can get the
Dutch firm Verwer, who bred Art Nouveau, to trial them. Here are a couple to go
on with.
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Blake Lowery
