The BGS Northern at Hartlepool Show Saturday 17th August 2013

   One of my favourite shows, especially in the days when we used to stage all night there, is the Hartlepool Borough Show where the BGS have held their Northern Show for maybe ten years or more now. I usually don't have loads of flowers for this show, but I put a few in and often judge the classes I haven't entered. There was a good turn out this time and it was not the easiest of shows to judge, there being relatively few really outstanding spikes.  Grand Champion went to Nigel's Of Singular Beauty which had the size and length often lacking in this cultivar. Nigel had a knack of growing good 500s. I remember when he put up a terrific Roseland once only for the myopic judge to give the award to a puny OSB. And I have seen him grow tremendous Esta Bonita which most people can't get right. A proper OSB looks like this:

Best 400 was a real headache for me. Everything had problems and even the eventual winner had major faults, but Paul Webster can be pleased to have produced a Pink Elegance to win the section.

Local exhibitor Brian Bland has a knack of getting amongst the prizes at this show and he carried off both Best 300 and Best 200 with Snazzy and Pink Elf.

Tommy Scollick (sp?) had the best seedling beating me into second and third places. A fine spike from a Tendresse cross. He was heard muttering all day ' Ah'm over the moon, over the moon.' Well deserved.

There was a judge's exam at the show but it wasn't the easiest and there was fine line between some sets of vases. Unfortunately, the examinees didn't pass this time (I know the feeling) but hopefully it won't be too long before another exam, maybe at Harrogate. Below Peter and Alison are pointing flowers for the exam.

Peter McNeillie beat me in the basket class last year here, but I didn't have the spikes to try this year so he won unopposed. A very nice entry all the same using Bonfire and maybe Sophie.

One of my cultivars won for Peter Forrow, who also had Best Exhibit for his Class 1 six flowers and various other wins. The prim below is Michelle Nouvelle, named after Michelle Booth, a friend of mine.

A new prim that I've been bulking up, named after my mate's late wife, Eileen Alty, managed to win its colour class. This was the fourth spike from one particular corm, so it certainly wants to grow.

A newer one flowering for the first time was this salmon and yellow prim below which comes from a line that throws lots of cormlets so hopefully it should bulk up quite fast.

Pictured below are two of Tommy's seedlings at the back with the winner on the right. I put three entries in this seedling class and my best one was probably the red at the front which had a nice spoon-shaped hood on it. I wish I was paid for all the red prims I produce. I would be minted.

The recent change to cooler weather seemed to have affected some flowers which threw an open floret up the stem away from the main flowers. In the three prims class this had happened to every entry. Phil Orley got the best prim but unfortunately I didn't get a photo of it. Many exhibitors had found it hard to hold back flowers so that a lot of the bigger sizes were overflowered without having enough buds to stay in balance. Life is never easy, but at least this year the plants have seen some sunshine!

The next gladiolus show is the National at Poynton this coming weekend. I have had some lovely flowers come out this week but will need to look to younger ones for the weekend. .

Southport Flower Show Thursday 15th August

  Quite a good turn out for this show, with most classes having four or more entries and the big classes covered as well. Peter Forrow broke his previous Southport record with ten wins and one second out of the twelve classes, a truly great result. Other well-known competitors were in attendance: Terry Morris, Jim Moore and Graham Anderson. in addition to some good local support. I only had a few seedlings which is what I am growing mostly this year.

Class 100 or 'The Nine' is the hardest class. Pictured below are the three entries with Peter's winning nine in the middle: three Star Performer, three 400s and then three Snazzy. Second and third were Terry and Jim, both using Careless and a combination of Dutch and American 400s.  Look at the difference between the exhibits just from a distant photo. If you can get three of a kind together in a vase, do it. It has so much more impact than a dog's breakfast of this and that.

Class 101 for the single prim had five entries. Peter was first with Marina, Bernie Wood second with an Atom and Jim third with Nikita. I was deservedly unplaced with a seedling past its best. Atom was bred in 1949 and is not often amongst the prizes these days.

Class 102 for the single 100/200 had ten entries. Terry was first with Pink Elf, Mr Ridsdale was second with Flevo Cool and L Bailey third with a well-grown example of the rarely seen Early Little Yellow.

Class 103 for the single 300 saw Peter's Snazzy first with Emir second and third for Bernie and Jim. There is a real need for a decent 300 that doesn't cost a lot. Supplies of USA 300s are poor. Snazzy is often too short. Emir (a.k.a. Purple Prince or Purple Flora) is mostly poor. I found when I tried last to breed some new ones that most crosses produced 400s (like my Peggy Roseby which was Lady Lucille x Cream Of The Crop). I may have to try again.

Class 104 for the single 400/500 had eight entries. Peter won with the 500 Socrates, a new but variable cultivar that can be very good. Second was Terry's Careless and third was Mrs Ellis with a creditable Esta Bonita. I tried growing 50 Esta for show two or three years ago. I think you need a hundred to get good spikes. It has a gap between the first and third floret on one side. It is also not the straightest in terms of its handle.

Class 105 below for three 100/200s is a difficult class as these flowers can fly open overnight and become overflowered as these were. Peter's Flevo Smile were first, then Terry's Mr Chris and then Jim's Bambino and Flevo Honey.

Class 106 for the three 300s also had four entries. Peter's Dion were first, then Graham's Red Velvet and third were Bernie's Emir. I haven't seen a good red Velvet this year so far: it's a bit informal.

Class 107 for three big ones saw Peter first with Drama, Socrates and Rosalind, Mr Cartmell second with Priscilla, Finishing Touch and Carelss and Terry third with two Careless and a Sophie. Rosalind has a lot of potential.

In the three prims in class 108, Peter was yet again first with three Shalimar, Graham second with three Little Jude and me third with three seedlings.  

Class 109 calls for three of one kind. Terry was first with Careless, then Peter with Huron Mask then Jim with Careless.

The class for six prims below had just the two entries: Peter was first with Lady Millicent, Little Jude, Shalimar and Kathryn. Graham was second with four Shalimar and two Clare. Kath Brown was pleased that the flower I named after her had done the business.

Class 111 (The Six) was won by Peter with six prims. Second was Graham with six big ones including four seedlings and third was Jim with six Sophie.

Below are my three seedlings from Class 108. I have bucketfuls of reds and oranges flowering right now but the middle one had more like Little Jude colours, though a bit different. Too gappy for top flight work though. the orange one on the right had fair placement.

The gladiolus section was split either side of an entrance. Just as well there were no strong winds.

There was much interest from the public and from other exhibitors. Here I spotted Reg Willis from Filey, grower of outstanding pinks, having a look at 'the twelve'.

Giant dahlias were well exhibited as can be seen from the two photos below. The six Sir Alf Ramsey in the second photo were superb.

The dianthus section was down on previous years. Both the PFs and the pinks could have done with more support. I presume the hot weather did not favour these, as most are grown under glass or polythene these days. Sweet peas were good but not top class. Again the number of flowers per stem had suffered with the heat.

After Southport it was back home to sort out a few for Hartelepool, where I was off the next day.

The Yorkshire Gladiolus Society Early Show, Huddersfield 10th August

  Huddersfield is early for me. Peter Forrow and others get loads of flowers for this show but I always seem to struggle. This year,  Peter, fresh from his triumphs at Leeds and Bakewell,  brought a large number of spikes and did extremely well, not only winning Best 300 with Star Performer but also winning other classes, especially the six class where his six Shalimar pictured below earned him Best Exhibit in the gladiolus show and was in contention for best exhibit in the whole show. this exhibit also contained the Best Primulinus. When you can do a six class with all the same cultivar it always has that special wow factor and these six spikes as an exhibit were stunning.  

Terry Morris had Grand Champion (Sorry I missed it from my photos) and his mate Jim Moore also did well. I struggled along with some seedlings. The lilac and white one below got nowhere in the colour class it was in but then it was well underflowered. We'll have to see how it performs next year.

I was luckier with another seedling. pictured below which won the single prim class. The judge, Eric Anderton was very enthusiastic about this one but I thought  it was a bit gappy. The photo doesn't show the true colours which are pale lemon with a pink blush then rose overlaid on a darker yellow. Hopefully it will go on to be productive.

Peter's prims were everywhere and here are just two from the many vases he staged.

This was a better show than last year when we were all running late and there were few entries.

BNCS Summer Show Chesterfield 10th July

The British National Carnation Society's Summer Show was again held at Dobbies Garden World near Chesterfield and again there were problems with the season being so late. Last year I did not have a border carnation to show at this event and there were very few PFs (Perpetual Flowering Carnations)as well.  This year it was only me who had any borders and there was only one PF on the bench, so the PF Carnation growers are also later than usual. However, as can be seen from these first two photos, there were plenty of pinks for people to look at. Mrs Roberts won the big prizes in the pinks. 

So as there was only me in the borders I'll just show some of the varieties I used. In the single bloom class for one white or cream I put in a Nichola Ann and a Eudoxia, neither of which were brilliant but the judge chose the Nichola Ann (on the left below) as the better of the two.

Below is Flanders which for me is my earliest flower. This means I was able to let it mature on the plant a bit to get some size on it. Many of the other varieties I had to cut young and their size suffered as a result.

I put two different pink borders in: Mary Conlon on the left, and Mystic Sunrise on the right which Phil Cross kindly referred to as a pitprop. One was too young and small the other was rough and clockfaced. The judge did the sensible thing a gave the young one a second and the pitprop a third.

In the other ground fancy class I put in two Lord Nuffields. This was the better one.

This one below  is a yellow called Chesswood Lidgett Yellow. Some years it is useless and other years you can just about get it to show but the stems are not very strong and so it can go all droopy on you. It wasn't too bad this year.

There was some interest in the variety below which is Grey Dove. Again these were very young and small.

Mary Conlon is a nice pink but it's hard to keep the colour without shading, which is in itself quite tricky as if you shade too early or too much the stems will go weak on you.

To my utter shame I had three vases NAS'd (disqualified) because of the dreaded red spider mite which I should have spotted. There's no excuse for not having clean plants at a show. What made it worse was they were my best three vases, one of twelve Leslie's Scarlet and two vases of three White Champagne:.as the judge said, 'Should have gone to Specsavers.'

A number of growers liked this particular bloom. The variety is Show Girl, which Stan Heslop very kindly let me have a few years ago.

The best vase award went to these three Grace's Scarlet Clove whose clove scent seemed to follow me all the way to the Bed and Breakfast place.

There was a mix-up with the trophies as they'd brought the Autumn ones instead so the President, Ray Ingham, presented me with two cards instead of the cups. No matter. I never take trophies home anyway. Not that I win very many!

If anyone reading this would like to grow and show some border carnations just leave me a comment and I'll help in any way I can.

The Pie Eaters Daffodil Show, Standish 6th May

   Being a late show, the Pie Eaters, run by the inimitable Ian Tyler, can be something of a mixed feast but this year's was a good one. 11 exhibitors and 239 blooms in 152 exhibits is a good total. It is fair to say that the Three Musketeers were outgunned, or should it be foiled, at this event. However, it needs saying that we had been to many other shows and thus had little left, whilst some of those there only do one or two shows and arrived with bucketfuls. To add to my own lack of decent flowers, I had a bad  dose of some sort of bug and thus managed to leave everything behind except the flowers and my oasis. As I didn't go last year, I'd forgotten that one needed to bring vases but I managed: Tom lent me one and Ian had plenty of small vases in a fetching peachy shade so all was not lost. Aramis lent me his staging gear so I was at least able to put something on the bench. A far cry, however, from Harrogate where I took over a hundred blooms. 

The six class was won by Keith Capper with the very nice entry pictured below which was best exhibit in the show. Keith had another entry in this class which was as good. He also had best bloom with a 'Chanson'.

The show  has just the one class for three blooms and there were very many entries including some lovely division 6s. The eventual winner of this class was Eddie Critchley from Derby who had some very classy flowers in the show and whose three 'Dailmanach' below were outstanding.

The shot below shows the entries in the sixes and threes with a very high standard.

I liked the Y-Y below 'The Baltic'.

Aramis got his picture taken with the judge in front of his winning 11a 'Pink Holly'.

This lovely Division 6 in pink and yellow was shown by Tom Tinker.

The ageing Porthos  came out second in a lengthy tussle with the noble show organiser whose sneakily imported American something beat my 'Stratosphere.'

The single Div 4 was a fair class and my big, old, blousy 'Serena Beach' wasn't worth a card but I was surprised that 'Dorchester' won it for Keith as there was some decent opposition.

Young D'Artagnan got two firsts for his three and one 'Sun Disc' in the miniatures, so the Musketeers all managed some cards between them. 

Thanks to Ian and the judge, to Margaret Capper for the pastries, and to my fellow exhibitors and Musketeers for their tolerance and bonhomie. 

As that is the end of the daffodil showing season, it remains now to feed the plants for a few weeks until they are lifted and replanted and then it all starts again with plans and preparations for next Spring.