CULTURAL DIARY   2017

Ron Aldous

Growing Begonias My way

January

I should first of all introduce myself, I like to be known as Ron, just Ron, and it was whilst attending the Southport show Bob our secretary asked me would I like to do the diary for 2017 to which I said I would, so here goes. 

I’m going to start with a quick look through my last year’s growing not a very successful one for me.  All started well my tubers starting up quicker than usual and more evenly.  All through potting up things still going well good roots foliage looking good, great. I had started off this 2016 year wanting to give Steve Jones a run for his money.

Steve has set the bar higher than it has ever been so I knew I had a job on my hands, I love a challenge.  Everything was going great, I had chosen to grow my Multistems with four laterals on each to match up with Steve’s plants, I could not have been more pleased with how the plants where performing. See pictures left and right.  I must say I thought I was on track but I didn’t count on the VERY HOT weather that was to come.  On the26^th. of July the temperature reached 110°f and it just melted those lovely begonias I was so very pleased with. See pictures before and after.  It took a few days to get over that, but you have to and move on.

It took a while for me to realise why my plants had suffered so badly it was just one day I looked up to the greenhouse roof I realised that all the cool glass had been washed off!!! All okay on the sides, lesson learnt.
 

        After fifteen plants or more, blowing off the staging last year,  I didn’t want another disaster.
        See pictures.
 

I’m past all that now so on to more up to date stuff.  I’d got all my adult tubers down cleaned and boxed up into tomatoes trays by mid-December and my cutting tubers by end of December,  What I did not want was the little white grubs, Vine Weevil but I did even after treating them with vine weevil killer another lesson learnt I will do it twice this year.

I have got one of my propagators up and running and got my cutting tubers on it 9^th. January so I’m up and running. I’ve mixed up six bushels of compost JI seed not too much fertiliser in readiness for putting my adult tubers on end Jan/early Feb.  I’m keeping busy washing canes at the moment I probably have a thousand or so with both Begonias and Chrysanthemums I stink of Jeyes fluid so my wife keeps on telling me, I love the smell.