Remarks from the Weekly KAVB Flower Show - Lisse

[Lesley Cox]

Love the Allium veneale 'Hair' but I guess all those little bulbils will fall off to colonize one's best bit of garden?

[Jim McKenney]

Last week I was visiting a friend who lives in the country and rents her fields to local farmers. Evidently the farmers had used herbicide on the fields: most broad leaf plants in the fields showed obvious herbicide damage. But standing tall and seemingly utterly unscathed were hundreds, maybe thousands, of Allium vineale. The clusters of bulbils glowed a soft garnet in the sun and made a nice contrast with the leaves sprouting from them. It was tempting to pick out the ones which in the old days might have appeared on lists as comosum, comatum, hirsitum, polytrichum, villosum, capillosum, dasycephalum, caput-medusae, jubatum, pilosum and so on: telling them apart would be very hairy. 

[Lvandelft]

This week we saw a nice collection of modern Triteleia and a good form
of Brodiaea californica:

Brodiaea californica Babylon 1                 
Brodiaea californica Babylon 2         
Triteleia Ocean Queen         
Triteleia Silver Queen 
Triteleia Purple Princess 1   
Triteleia Purple Princess 2       
Triteleia Blue Star 1   
Triteleia Blue Star 2   

[Lvandelft]

Yesterday at the show:
Of the Allium I found the stem more impressive than the flower.
Of the Calochortus some pictures are taken at my house, because the
exhibitor left some spare flowers, so we do have a wonderful bunch in a vase now.

Allium psekimense       
Allium psekimense 1             
Allium psekimense 2           
Calochortus             
Calochortus 1           
Calochortus 2           
Calochortus Golden Orb   
              (Which is actually a good dark stable seed strain of C. luteus.)       
Calochortus Violet Queen       
Calochortus Superbus   
Calochortus 3   

[David Nicholson]

Beautiful Calochortus, I have yet to see one I don't like.

[Maggi Young]

Beautiful Calochortus, I have yet to see one I don't like.

I just had to check it was you who said that, David.....it could so easily have been the Calochortus King.... David King, formerly of Sheffield and now of Perthshire! He adores them too... well, why wouldn't you?

How glamorous to have them as cut flowers!

[David Nicholson]

Is that the same David King who wrote the Frit. section in 'Bulbs of North America'?  Incidentally the aforementioned book is excellent with a very useful section on Calochortus. I picked it up from an USA bookshop on the Abe Books Web Site for $2.50 plus a couple of $'s p and p

'Bulbs of North America'  Edited by Jane McGary, published by NARGS

[Maggi Young]

Is that the same David King who wrote the Frit. section in 'Bulbs of North America'?

Yes, that's the chap!

[Lesley Cox]

They certainly are beautiful and worth growing from seed supplied by someone like Ron Ratko who collects over a wide area and so gets plenty of variation within each species.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

  as so many others Luit, I adore the Calochortus too !
Thanks for showing them and let us know how long they keep in the vase !

[Magnar]

Wonderful Calocorthus pics... thank you. They don't do well in my garden. Probably my summer is now warm enough.

[Lvandelft]

as so many others Luit, I adore the Calochortus too !
Thanks for showing them and let us know how long they keep in the vase !

Luc, I can say that we today the whole bunch threw away.
All the buds were opening day after day and I was very surprised.
Yesterday I counted still 30 open flowers on app. 15 stems!
Today, the flowers I pictured  last week in the Show Room were still there and o.k.,
but there is a constant temp. of 15 C.

[Lvandelft]

This week there is a big exhibition of Agapanthus in the Show Hall.
I found the first pictured A. Sofie very special innovation, because of the
very dark blue flowers and the compact inflorescence, which will be very
welcome for cutflower production.

And another S. African Chasmanthe which still awaits a break-through
in cultivation and trade was showed too.

Agapanthus Sofie   
Agapanthus Bluety                     
Agapanthus Lilliput                 
Agapanthus Paris                   
Chasmanthe floribunda var. duckittii           
Chasmanthe floribunda var. duckittii 2                 
Chasmanthe floribunda 
Chasmanthe floribunda 2

[Lvandelft]

Today was special show for Gladiolus.
The old Gl. nanus Prins Claus was one of a few nanus cvs.
The others were newer hybrids.
All cultivars were judged by the Gladiolus Committee of the KAVB.
Here some pictures:

Gladiolus nanus Prins Claus
Gladiolus mixed
Gladiolus pink seedling             
Gladiolus Ollanda             
Gladiolus Sunglow               
Gladiolus seedl.       
Gladiolus Soul   
Gladiolus Mariangel

[Lesley Cox]

I think these are beautiful and I have bought 3 vars myself, this year, 'Charm,' 'Halley' and 'Mirella' but I think it's a shame the newer forms are looking less and less like the original species and more and more like the bigger, "Dame Edna" kinds. It would be really good to have the colours in the older, more delicate-looking form.