South Wales Diary 2010

 INTRODUCTION
    I am retired now after spending twenty years as a maintenance man at my local Marie Curie Hospice.
   I first became aware of Begonias in 1991 (I think,) I was at the Kings Heath Flower show to visit the National carnation show that was being held there, in the same marquee I came across the Begonia show and was captivated by the amazing colours compared to the colour range of my carnation collection. I spoke to a number of people on the begonia display area and my wife bought me a book on begonias written by Eric Catterall, who was at the show selling the books and I said to my wife one day I will grow Begonias instead of Carnations. Even though I gave up growing carnations in 1993 it was 10 years later that I started to grow Begonias in any quantity for my garden displays, I been looking after the gardens at the hospice as a volunteer gardener in my spare time and decided that some of the flower beds at the front of the Hospice needed to be brightened up and some of the shrubs were now ten years old and looking tired, but as no money was available to plant up new gardens was available I knew that I would have to raise money myself to pay for the bedding plants and so I purchased my first Beg Semp plugs from Gardening direct (about 1000 I think) I grew them on and sold 500 to cover the cost of purchase and planted up the rest in the Hospice gardens. My love for the Begonia was born, over the years I increased the varieties to include the Dutch doubles for pots on the patios and trailing for hanging baskets and for displays in my own gardens at home.
   It was not until 2006 that I joined the National Begonia Society, and my first contact with any members was at the South West Area meeting at Nailsea in 2007.
   In November 2008 Myself and the South Wales area rep Ian Rhys Williams decided to try and start a South Wales Area group for people living in the West of Wales who was finding it to far to travel to Nailsea.
   Hence the South Wales Area was born. and I was elected the Local area secretary.
   I had still not grown any exhibition begonias at this stage as my main interest is still Begonia displays in my garden and the hospice gardens which have won the Penarth in Bloom completion so often now we have been asked to stand down from entering for the next couple of years to give other nursing homes a chance, but the displays will still go on.
   But in 2010 I will grow a number of exhibition pots for three Shows in 1 Bideford. 2 our own South Wales Show. And if I can afford the transport costs the National in Birmingham,
   I did attempt to grow a few cut blooms for our first South Wales Area show and managed to get a few seconds in various novice classes and will try to do better next season, but my pot plants were abysmal I will concentrate on getting my pot plants up to scratch in 2010.

   My 2010 diary will cover mainly my growing of the garden displays at home and at the Hospice and a record of how my pot plants turn out at the various shows I have mentioned.  

19^th. December a disaster this morning. On checking my covered growing area where my 54 pots were still dying down due to the very mild Autumn I found that the temperature had dropped to -8c overnight and all the plant were well and truly blackened and the foliage had fallen, luckily I had put fleece over them the night before as a precaution even though frost had not been forecast. Most of the pots were completely frozen on the top of the compost but in most cases the soil in the pots was still soft. I will have to wait and see if the frost damaged many tubers.(Photo A)
  26^th. December all the tubers have now been harvested and most are dry enough to be cleaned and put to bed, some look as if the will not survive the dormancy as when I removed the stem scab there was brown line in the tuber flesh, but all have been dusted with Sulphur powder and placed into individual paper bags has I have always done with my Dutch garden tubers (each tuber labelled and the names on the bags a puff of sulphur is also squirted into each bag. will check regularly and discard the rotting tubers if any. And start looking for replacements if needed. (Photo B)
 1^st. January 2010. Sowed my Christmas present today (I had seeds of Hanging basket begonias from Antonelli Bros in America) 200 Ruffled, and 200 Picottee these have been sown in my propagator indoors in an alcove at the top of the stairs to save heat in the glass house  (Photo C)
6^th. January at least six inches of snow on the ground this morning. (over the tops of my wellingtons with the drifting in front of the greenhouse door).
8^th. January Have now started up one of my heat mats with a clotch covering it is 2 mts long and ½ metre wide this is needed to sow my 500 geranium seeds that will be sold to fund my begonia displays at the Hospice and cover most of my greenhouse heating bill. (Photo D)
   I hope to see warmer weather soon we have had 20 days of below 0c temperature and the heating has been on in the greenhouse to keep the inside at 5c not good for the bank balance.
13^th. January Woke up to even more snow about 5 inches had fallen over night, but the very cold NE wind has gone and it now feels a lot warmer but still about freezing. The Geranium seeds seem to be in a great hurry to germinate and about half of the first 250 have germinated in the propagator.
   Also the Basket Begonia seeds in my indoor propagator have started to germinate.
   My foliage begonias i.e. Beg Rex and Cane types have managed to get through the winter so far in full leaf, They are stashed away under one of my benches in the greenhouse and have more or less been forgotten, in other years I have tended to mollycoddle them and by this stage all the leaves would have fallen off.