September Narcissus 2012

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
A few photos of some seedling doubles and some W-O seedling. Some of the seedling doubles are quite small and are used for breeding miniature doubles.

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Some miniatures.

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
A few intermediates.

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
A few standard seedlings that stood out.

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Maggie does anyone actually look at these photos?

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
More photos.

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Last for the evening. A seedling box that is yet to flower!
It is probably close to late season now. There is still a fair few flowers to flower still. We have been working at extending our flowering season both ends.

[Maggi Young]

Hi
Maggie does anyone actually look at these photos?

I've noticed that very few seem to enlarge the photos, Graham. I think it is because it is quite easy to see the detail of the individual flowers quite well in the thumbnail and so not much is gained by clicking on them.

Also, your uploads are all larger than the recommended Forum posting size and many people do not want to bother opening a large photo that they will need to scroll around the screen to see.

Quite a lot of folks reading the posts, of course!

[David Nicholson]

I look at 'em all, and find them very interesting. Keep on posting please.

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
It is probably not entirely obvious from the photos that I have been posting that that the main emphasis of our hybridising is for miniature and intermediates. We do grow standards but they are not our main interest. However they do provide colour and we are breeding for colour in miniatures.  In terms of size for alpine gardens most of our intermediates and miniatures would be ideal. I am not sure that our micro minis would be suitable for open gardens but they would be ok for pots.
The height of some of our intermediates is actually miniature size and if you had looked at the photo of the stunning little 1Y-W seedling that would have been apparent. This post includes a photo of two intermediates. The first is of one of the intermediate split cups that I posted yesterday together with the intermediate 4W-Y that was posted yesterday. The edited photos can be difficult to distinguish. I noticed that I had posted an intermediate 4W-Y as a standard. It is an outstanding small flower with many layers. It also is not very tall. The photo shows some pollen which will be put to good use. We have two of these outstanding intermediate doubles.

[annew]

 I look at them all as well, but only enlarge if necessary. The single bloom shots can be seen very well without enlargement. What are the nets for? In the pots of apodanthe X, the compost looks very strange and structureless - what do you use?

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Anne, I don't think I have ever had my potting mix described as very strange and structurelsss. However, it is very different to what you do I suspect. My potting mix is a mixture of sandy soil, river sand and pine fines.We don't have any problem growing our miniatures in our mix and I have been using it for many years.
I have included a photo that shows why you should be careful about your seedlings. The 11W-P is an outstanding flower but I need to rescue it into a pot.
There is another Div 7 miniature that changes colour over time. 5 florets to stem is not bad for any miniature.
I am not sure whether anybody has thought about how we produce our miniature Div 7's with colour. We have been blessed by the daffodil gods with fertile seedlings with which to breed. The 7W-W with three florest is a fertile intermediate sized flower.

[Hillview croconut]

I'm looking Graham. Always interested in whats going on at my end of the gardening world.

Concur with Maggi - I scroll and enlarge the occasional picture but they are a bit unwieldy at the size you are posting. Possibly discourages one to open up too many in one sequence.

BTW -I like the kite shot. We don't get any here in Tasmania but we do have a similar raptor, the white goshawk, which is a rare colour form of the mainland's Grey Goshawk.

Thanks for your postings.

Cheers, Marcus 

[Armin]

I'm enjoying your breeding results, too.

I just wonder by the large numbers you keep if you have to deal with narcissus fly pest and if how to keep under control?

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Armin as far as I am aware Narcissus fly is not in Australia and if it is it is not in Canberra.
We do not lose any bulbs due to Narcissus fly.
I don't have photos which show the full extent of our daffodils but yes we have hundreds of thousands of them and we don't lose many at all. You have to remember that our climate is very similar to that in Spain.
The biggest cause of losses for us is too much rain at the wrong time of the year.
Quarantine used to hit imported bulbs with methyl bromide and that will kill anything including the bulbs if used in too high a concentration. The problem will be illegally imported bulbs from countries that have them. I was distracted and forgot to say about what the nets are for and the significance of the Black Shouldered Kite. The nets are for keeping the sulfur crested cockatoos from destroying our bulbs.  They have hit some bulbs that are not under nets. However, we don't see any when the kite is visiting. He has been around the daffodil patch frequently during the last week.
If you have wondered about our proliferation of triandus hybrids it is because the daffodil gods have let us have lots of different subspecies (except a couple of subspecies we are still searching for) to assist in hybridising and allowed us to develop fertile hybrids.
Hello Marcus. Marcus grows lots of other things we like to grow.