I arrived on Thursday morning to judge the glads at Southport at approximately daft o'clock a.m. having driven the 35 miles there on deserted roads rather than opting to stay in a hotel. Bad move, as I was a little bit tired by the end of the day. My fellow conspirator Eric Anderton turned up at about 6 a.m. and we waited for the central cafe on the showground to open for judges, feeding of, to commence. After a bacon barm and cup of coffee and much chinwaggery about flowers various and promises to swap this that and the other, we shuffled off to judge the glads. The poor weather meant that there were none of the usual Scottish exhibitors present. I learned later they had been flooded out a few days before. So it was down to the locals or near locals and much the same names as Huddersfield in the end.
As can be seen above there were only two entries in the Championship Class for nine spikes. Graham Anderson from Burton on Trent won with the nine on the right.
Included in the nine were these three interesting seedlings from an Andy O cross. The second placed nine belonged to Terry Morris. Included in his exhibit were the three new Peppermint Delight pictured below.
The other major class is the six prims. Peter Forrow won this against no other competition but the prims were better in any case than what he had staged at Huddersfield and would have taken some beating.
Peter Forrow and his six Lady Penelope. The other classes were well contested with the prizes spread out amongst Peter Forrow, Jim Moore, Terry Morris and Bernie Wood. Peter ended up with the most firsts which wins some enormous piece of silverware.
Apart from the glads, which were not as good or as many as usual, the chrysants and dahlias were down too. Sweet peas, however, are now grown almost exclusively in tunnels for exhibition so the quality was stunning.
The overall impression (above) was breathtaking but the two championship entries (below) were exceptional.
I hope to resume showing glads in earnest next year, now that I have crossed enough this year to provide me with a few years of seedlings, for that was the plan, and may well have a go at Southport. My plots are so late that I will have to make a really big effort to get blooms on time for this early show.
The joy of Southport for me is that I meet up, often for the first time in months, with many old friends. Ivor Mace and I belonged to the same gardening club in the same Rhondda Valley for some time and it is always a pleasure to talk to him about his PFs. I used to grow a few but now grow Borders and a few Pinks instead. I am pleased that other PF growers are now following Ivor in his production of immaculate large flowers that are not coarse, just perfectly grown. With Ivor was another old friend and expert grower, Roy Tudor, one of the most knowledgeable growers around and a gentleman. His Trelyn prefixed dahlias are now very famous and listed in the Halls catalogue. He had a terrific dark red collerette on show, exhibited by Ivor, beautifully smooth. If my life depended on someone growing something well, Roy would have the job. Always a delight to talk to. Others I met again , besides the obvious glads exhibitors, were Betty and Jim Linnell, Bill Wilkie, Chris Nightingale and Don Sutcliffe. Probably others too. I'll try and put up some photos of these great gardeners in future blogs.
I managed to source some Red Hill daffodils on one stall at Southport. This is a fairly rough but early Division 3 that I have won with in the past at the local spring shows when Div 3s are hard to come by. I also got a gift for my best girl, a rather nice silk scarf this time. The daffs planting and potting is starting for me now and will continue well into September. I've made a proper sandpit for the pots' first few weeks this year as I lost too many last year in the dreadful, prolonged cold spell. A bleary drive home followed and then a sleep before getting ready to go up to Hartlepool to the B&B ready to judge the BGS National on Saturday morning. All the evidence of Huddersfield and Southport pointed to this being a tough one to judge as there would probably not be many obviously outstanding exhibits. I managed to sneak in an hour at the allotments to cross a few more of my breeder glads before driving off into the night.
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