Daffodils in the Southern Hemisphere in 2008

[Lvandelft]

Graham I love al these miniature Narcissus, you show here.
I believe breeding of them is a specialty of which I seldom hear
in Holland.
As I know not much about breeding Narcissus, I have one question.
What do you mean with "wet program" in:
Box of wet program cyclamineus hybrids

[Maggi Young]

Luit, Graham writes about this is the old forum, here:

http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/283/8751.html

 I have copied the main piece below....


[quote   ..... your question about our "wet programme" is a common one. N. cyclamineus and several other species (such as N. alpestris and some bulbocodium species that like it wet)prefer to be kept moist all year. N. cyclamineus will die if it dries out in summer. We have a hybridising programme that uses such species as the seed parents. The resulting seedlings are also kept moist all year. Such conditions probably equate to some gardeners normal growing conditions but they are not our normal growing conditions. We have to water our seedlings all through our hot summers to keep them and N. cyclamineus alive. We use Camellia japonica as our moisture monitor since it grows in the same conditions. If its leaves droop then we need to water.
Our normal growing conditions are Mediterranean--hot dry summers and cold winters with most rainfall in winter and spring in normal growing seasons. These are the conditions at our farm and we expect our miniatures to thrive with a minimum of care at the farm. Our "dry hybridising program" is made of our seedlings that thrive in hot dry summers. These seedlings die if they get too much moisture in summer. We have miniature white cyclamineus that are from our dry hybridising program. Some of our best seedlings including Platinum Legend, Second Fiddle, Good Friend and K2/2000 are all from our dry program. N. cyclamineus may be in the parentage but not as a seed parent. It is either as a pollen parent or in the parentage of the seed or pollen parent. Our dry program includes a lot of miniatures that are not cyclamineus. We have produced a lot of exhibition triandus hybrids. (We primarily produce exhibition daffodils for export to the USA but we also export to the UK and NZ.) Our dry programme is very large relative to our wet programme. We produce around the same number of seeds as Brian Duncan but most of our seed is second, third or fourth generation hybrids these days because we have been doing it for since the late 1980's.
Some of our USA customers have a preference for the dry programme hybrids because they have dry summers.
I suspect that there is a range of bulbs that have been developed in better conditions than ours that would prefer conditions closer to our wet programme conditions. We have grown some imported bulbs at the farm only to find that they fade away in our hot dry summer conditions.
The normal rule for growing species is of course to provide conditions as close as possible to their natural habitat. If they grow in wet conditions in the wild we provide them with much the same conditions.
We have produced micro minis from both our wet and dry programmes.
One of things about doing hybridising on the sort of scale we do is that we can develop our new hybrids over a number of generations. We don't necessarily think that we will achieve our goals in one generation. However, the advantage of working in miniatures is that the flowering time is much shorter than standards subject to the fact that N. dubius takes 9-11 years to flower from seed.
quote]

[Lesley Cox]

Maggi, if it's 20 to 3 in the afternoon with you, it's 20 to midnight in Australia and 20 to 2 here, it being winter here and presumably in summer time in Aberdeen (though not necessarily summer ). There's a short period each autumn and spring when our summer time has started but yours hasn't ended, that we are 12 hours ahead and Oz is 10. Then we go to 13 hours ahead and Oz to 11, Oz being 2 hours behind us. Confused? In other words, if it's night time in Italy, it's Wednesday over here. And I wish certain NH persons would remember all these numbers when deciding to phone me after lunch (there).

[Lvandelft]

Luit, Graham writes about this is the old forum, here:

http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/283/8751.html

Thank you Maggi, that’s very informative.
I thought first I made a stupid question, but I see in 2005 the same question raised.
Now I understand a lot more about Narcissus. As you know we discussed in the Forum that the Mediterranean forms need a warm period to flower in the next year again.
And I think I now understand the reason why some miniatures won’t flower the first year after planting. I refer to N. willkommii, of which I believed it has only to be planted deep, but now I think when I got them the first time, they were kept to dry.
There is so much to learn in this Forum. Really great!

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Luit, Maggie has saved me some typing.
N. wilkommii certainly likes it hot and dry over summer. It is one of the daffodils that has appreciated our drought!
When growing species it is best to look up to see what climate and soil conditions it grows in where it is native.

[Lvandelft]

Hi
Luit, Maggie has saved me some typing.
N. wilkommii certainly likes it hot and dry over summer. It is one of the daffodils that has appreciated our drought!
When growing species it is best to look up to see what climate and soil conditions it grows in where it is native.

O.k. then I was not quite right with N. willkommii.(Have to learn a lot still  ). In that case it must have been
the very hot April of last year. Am curious what next year happens? Almost no hot periods until now.

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Time for a few more photos for those interested in miniature daffodils.
I am having trouble with Currawongs (a largish native bird that is particularly smart and aggressive towards other smaller birds). They have snipped the heads off some of our miniature seedlings including 4 selected ones in the Shadehouse (they are smart enough to fly through the entrance).

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Sometimes we overdo the miniaturising thing a bit!

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
A few more photos. Nature has done its best to provide a form of miniature that Lesley is not so keen on.

[Paul T]

Aargh!  Currawongs are a pain.  They don't damage things in my garden that I know of, but they chase all my lovely birds away!!  They travel in packs and beat up on everything. 

But your remaining daffs are gorgeous Graham.  I love that last W-Y micro mini in your first posting.  Very delicate.  Actually I like all the W-Y you posted!!  Except of course the poor decapitated corpses in the last pic. 

[annew]

  Just found this thread! All your babies look great, Graham. My favourites are the ones with a paler zone at the base of the trumpet. Glad I don't have the Currawongs.

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
Just back from watching the Rugby.
The Currawongs have truly annoyed me. One went into the Shadehouse and snipped off the flowers and, to make things worse, the leaves on 4 top quality miniature 6W-Y's that I had pollinated. They have attacked flowers in 2 of my seedling rows and got in under my anti-bird netting and attacked the clump of 6W-Y's that contains the 6W-Y that was posted here. Unfortunately the net was left up further down the row. They are in large numbers (I counted about 20 one day) next door because of the vineyard behind us. They like grapes apparently and the small birds attracted by the grapes.
All this damage occurred while there was a large amount of building work going on a short distance from the daffodil beds! The bricklayers just don't rate as scarecrows obviously.
I will probably have to net some of the more recent miniature rows to protect them from the Currawongs. I usually net to protect things from the cockatoos. The cockatoos don't enter the Shadehouse. I am at a loss as to how to stop them entering the shadehouse easily as there are spaces under the eaves and at ground level.
Anne, does that mean you like to collect halos!!  (Sorry, couldn't resist. In the daffodil world the type of daffodil you are talking about is described as having a halo.)

[Mini-daffs]

 
Hi
The litle trumpet in its pot.

[Maggi Young]

These Currawongs seem a real pest... can you eat them? By which I mean, 1) arethey tasty? and 2) is it legal to shoot them?

[annew]

I don't need to collect halos, I already have one