Off to the show.

Hi Billy,



Well done,



By the way, how did your Fuchsias and the no-name Begonia do?

 

My Shelford Fuchsia got a first but the no name Begonia was unplaced.

 

Well done Billybell!

 

Well done, I thought your Dahlia was stunning. I knew a fanatical Dahlia exhibitor some years ago. I'm sure he would have been very impressed with your specimen.

 

Well done.

 

To be honest I wish that I knew one myself I could do with some advice on how to time them to be ready on particular show dates. I just put them in this year and when they flowered they flowered.

 

I am afraid the person I knew is no longer with us otherwise I'd have given you his contact details and he'd have been happy I'm sure to give of his knowledge. He was a really super guy called Tom Melrose and he died far too young. I remember many years ago showing off my "wonderful" Dahlias to him. I was a little miffed that he didn't show much enthusiasm for my efforts not knowing he'd won prices for his all over Britain. He muttered something about growing Dahlias "a bit" and would I like to go and see them. I jumped at the chance knowing at that time very little about them.
OMG he had from memory 3 huge greenhouses stuffed with them plus god know how many fridges that he kept ones in to delay flowering over the season. He grew Cactus types and another type which were about the size of footballs. Many of the bloom had tissue paper bags over them to keep them perfect for showing. Evidently the really tricky bit is getting is it 5? blooms as near as the same as possible. I remember he told me he started the corms off at the beginning of the season and then took the resulting shoots as cuttings and threw away the corms which I found surprising. After I put my eyeballs back in their sockets I realised why Tom hadn't been exactly heaping praise on my puny specimens!

 

My 60lbs+ Marrow and longest runner bean are all loaded up on my hand truck to take to our village show tomorrow.

 

Good luck Scrungee, for gawd's sake don't drop the Marrow, hope the truck is strong enough. Do they have a best bargain hunter category? you'd walk that!

 

I was thinking that it might be useful to have something like a 'entering the show' thread next year, as it might perhaps encourage a few people to have a go, give those interested the opportunity to ask questions and encourage them to enter, plus enable those who enter shows to give advice.

 

Good Job Billy !!!