The Lysimachia is in full flower this week (although they have been producing flowers over the past 2 weeks). The Jumbo is still far superior to the Mambo which is still showing leaf necrosis and chlorosis. They are also apparently very prone to spider mite?
The second planting of Asclepias “Apollo Orange” is now in full flower and vase life work is currently being undertaken by Emma at Floralife but it looks like they need to be put into water immediately after harvesting in order to dilute the sap.
On Tuesday we held an Open Evening for growers to look at the late planted column stock variety trial. All of the Japanese varieties have flowered whereas one of the main traditional varieties have not yet even produced any buds. The Anytime is starting to flower but is quite uneven with short stems.
The grower assessment of the Japanese strains was that some varieties are too weak stemmed to be considered for further assessment. Of the other varieties such as Iron and Venus, the growers were impressed with the stem length & strength, leaf quality and vibrancy of the flower colours BUT there were too many short or uncomplete columns amongst them to make the crop viable. However, as this was a very late planted crop which had to grow through one of the hottest periods on record, the question remains about how much better an earlier planted crop would have performed. To this end it is proposed to repeat the trial in 2019 with plantings in week 18, 20, 22 and 24 (this years trial was planted in week 28).
