Summary of 2012 so far

What a year it has been for dahlia growers!

We complicated the weather issues by moving to a new piece of ground as we needed more space.  On top of that we moved house as well to be nearer the new nursery which meant moving the dahlias mid-propagation, not the easiest task.

We took the land over in mid-March when it was very wet so had to wait for a dryer spell before getting it ploughed; this happened on the 14th April.  It then rained for the next 4 weeks, every day.  We could then able to get it rough cultivated in mid-May, fine cultivated a couple of weeks later and planted out during the first two weeks in June.  Running late already!

June and July did not provide good growing weather either, our plants are running about three weeks behind any normal season.  However, our contacts in New Covent Garden Flower Market still demand our blooms so we expect to have a good season overall.

A selection of images of this year's first delivery to the Market and a collarette seedling that the bees like!

January 2012

It seems no time at all since I began this occasional offering about growing dahlias generally targeting those of you that are new to these magnificent plants.  But is is a year now so to find out what to do with your dahlias in January please look back to the very first post!

December is a quiet month for the commercial grower, although these terms are relative!    During December I was interviewed as a contributor for an article for Flower Arranger magazine edited by Judith Blacklock.  This magazine is the standard journal of all flower clubs nationwide and promotes the use of British Blooms.  

2011 was a fantastic year for us as it was the first year of serious, commercial operations.  We established a link with a top wholesaler in New Covent Garden Flower Market, Alagar Limited, and through them reached top designers such as Simon Lycett of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" fame who took our blooms on to the "Alan Titchmarsh Show" and Shane Connolly who designed the arrangements in Westminster Abbey for the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.  They both became firm and valued customers in 2011 and we look forward to supplying them once again this year.  Twice a week from August to the middle of October we transported our few hundred blooms in buckets to the market in the 4x4 and then parked between huge pantechnicons, with trailers, from the Netherlands!

We were visited by a number of photographers Helen Jermyn being the notable guest, Helen was kind enough to write a nice blog article about us back in August.   

As for trial and tribulations; we learnt never to use Royal Mail for sending our plants.  In 2011 we used Royal Mail for delivering rooted cuttings but 30% of the packages we sent were either lost or damaged.  The fact that we were fully compensated by them is of no real value as we not only needed to find replacements but the time and effort required was time we could have spent more productively!   We sent all our plants - 'garden ready' so to speak, that is, matured plants ex-9cm pots - using City Link courier with a 100% success rate.  As a consequence, for 2012 we are only offering plants and not rooted cuttings.  These will be available from mid-April onwards for people with greenhouse facilities and later until the first week in June for those without greenhouses.

Looking forward; July 27th is the start of the 2012 London Olympics, I do hope that the florists selected to provide the arrangements and bouquets buy British!