These clouds are known as pilea or plates in English and they tend to stack up in the sky and look very dramatic. August often gives us some very dramatic skies in England. These were spotted on the A1 near York.
After a strange stay in a Hartlepool B&B on Friday where no one seemed to be around to provide the breakfast or take payment, I drove to the Headland Cafe for a breakfast sandwich before beginning the task of judging the British Gladiolus Society National Show. A few classes have disappeared over the years, but this remains one of the main shows to go to to see gladioli at their best, the other one being Harrogate in September.
It was an honour to be asked to judge the National on my own as it is often done by teams of judges. So many of them are also exhibitors that I suppose this year I was the logical choice as people knew I was doing the breeding of new cultivars instead of showing for a change.
In the car park I met my old mate Brian who called me over to look at a nice new seedling he had brought to show me. See photo below. I said I thought the parents might be Little Jude and Flevo Smile which is a daft statement really, but I could see traces of both in the flower.
As I expected the flowers were not as abundant or as superb as they can be, and it soon became obvious that many of the top growers did not have many blooms because of the lateness of the season generally. This has affected vegetables as well here in Lancashire.
Grand Champion went to Of Singular Beauty, a 500 from across the pond. I don't normally rate this flower as it is often grown poorly because the name is enough for some people to think it will win. This particular spike however was enormous and well grown. Paul Webster grew it and the Pink Elegance to the left of it which was Best 400.
What 300s that made it to the bench were not brilliant: very short Cream of The Crop and Carved Ivory and in fact there was no entry in the 3 x 300s. However, Trevor Fawcett produced a very nice Red Velvet to take the Best 300. Best 200 below was Flevo Smile. I didn't get the grower's name but will try to edit this later when I find out.
There is a prize for Grand Champion Primulinus and this was not the easiest award to make as though there were many prims there, lots had faults or were a bit overflowered. Several apparently had gone over during the night. Anyway, Peter Forrow clinched it in the end as his Shalimar (below) had balance and looked the part.
There were fewer baskets than usual but this red and white combination was a very good effort and won Best Basket.
Mick Jones from Enfield has a long and distinguished history of breeding very interesting seedlings and his yellow and orange prim won the Best Seedling award.
Judging wise it was difficult to sort out some classes because there was nothing really outstanding. Class 1 counts towards the National Championship and I awarded first to three prims by Alan Mumby, the first time any judge has given prims a first in this class. Whilst they had some faults they were a nice matched set and better than the bigger glads as a set of three. Paul Webster, for example, had the Grand Champion and therefore Best 500 and the Best 400 in his three but the third glad, a Pinnacle rather let down the other two. This is not a criticism as everyone has obviously been struggling to get some quality blooms. And then even after awarding these three prims a top accolade, I could not give any of them Grand Champion as individually they had faults. Thus it is in this judging business.
No comments:
Post a Comment