Drinking stunts your growth

Today's Independent newspaper had a fascinating report by Anna Pavord that adding alcohol to the water when growing paperwhite narcissi stunts the stem growth by 50% while not affecting the flower size at all. The alcohol has to be a spirit, rather than the dregs of the wine glass, and the best ratio seems to be 9 parts water: 1 or alcohol.

I couldn't find the article on the web, but this ia a report of the same researchhttp://www.gardensalive.com/article.asp?ai=724&bhcd2=1137263962. I have a few left over from Christmas so I am going to give it a go and see whether it solves the problem of leggy bulbs needing to be staked.

Pinks are perkier

Forcing bulbs this year has been a learning experience - the tables that tell you the timing and the temperatures are all very consistant so I planted everything followig the advice with some planted a week either side. However, the different colours - and it does seem to be colours rather than varieties - are flowering at very different times. With the hyacinths the pinks are far ahead of the field - Anne Marie and Pink Pearl have been in flower since 28th December, the blues which are flwering now, wheras the whites are looking as though they may take another couple of weeks. White Amaryllis are also notably slower than the Appleblossom pink and Liberty Red.
I noticed a similar thing with sweet peas last year - the earliest to flower were the flake varieties - mottled pink and white or purple and white - after that it was the pink, then blue, then finally white.
I am busy planting up the final lots of hyacinths which should be ready to sell at the Country Living show in March - I am slightly allergic to the bulbs but can't plant them with gloves on so I am becoming more red and itchy as the day goes on.

Pinks are perkier

Forcing bulbs this year has been a learning experience - the tables that tell you the timing and the temperatures are all very consistant so I planted everything followig the advice with some planted a week either side. However, the different colours - and it does seem to be colours rather than varieties - are flowering at very different times. With the hyacinths the pinks are far ahead of the field - Anne Marie and Pink Pearl have been in flower since 28th December, the blues which are flwering now, wheras the whites are looking as though they may take another couple of weeks. White Amaryllis are also notably slower than the Appleblossom pink and Liberty Red.
I noticed a similar thing with sweet peas last year - the earliest to flower were the flake varieties - mottled pink and white or purple and white - after that it was the pink, then blue, then finally white.
I am busy planting up the final lots of hyacinths which should be ready to sell at the Country Living show in March - I am slightly allergic to the bulbs but can't plant them with gloves on so I am becoming more red and itchy as the day goes on.

Critters

Today was really the first day of the New Year. The children were collected by the school bus at 8.45 and I set off to have a proper look at the garden and field. The cold weather has certainly brought out hungry animals to eat their ways through everything..
In the summer, when everything is growing fast, I am very sang-froid about pests. "well themoles were in the field before I was" I say to the local mole catcher; "if we didn't have voles, we wouldn't have buzzards" I naively opine at a drinks party. In the middle of a cold snap it is another matter - deer, detered from the main field by our double fence, have take to browsing their way through the front garden - munching the new eucalyptus trees and even the potted fatsia on the front steps. Hares have been in the field - their droppings are everywhere and they have been eating the sweet william plants and any alliums that have sprouted early. Voles and mice have been at all bulbs bar narcissi and have eaten the entire snakeshead fritillary crop from the tunnel.
I keep reminding myself that all of these plants- apart of course from those munched fritillaries - will recover - The trees will get new leaves, I can move the fatsia into the tunnel, the sweet william will grow again when it warms up and I can level the molehills that zoom along the grass paths and use the beautifully worked compost in my potting compost.
Or I can buy some traps and contact that local mole killer.

New Year

This snowy weather has meant that I have been unable to get cracking with all the outdoor jobs that were put off while wreath making in December. Instead I have been sorting out the garage and potting up the amaryllis bulbs which didn't sell as Christmas presents. Most of the straightforward red/white and stripy ones have gone but I have been left with the more unusual varieties - probably because I didn't get myself organised enough to find photographs of what they look like in bloom. I am quite pleased though as I think that a few big planters full of the small flowered "Giraffe" , the stems supported by alder twigs, will look spectacular - I am also looking forward to seeing how dark "Royal Velvet" really is and will pot a few up for the house in a large dark red cylinder vase to put on the coffee table http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/40288-product.html