Bulb Shopping Downtown!

The past few weekends have seen me once again visiting the local garden centre's, and while I've bought quite a few bulbs from there, there are also some good places to buy cheap bulbs in town! During the past couple of weeks, trips to town have seen me arriving home with bulbs from Wilkinsons and Poundland, all for great prices in my opinion. Last year I also bought some nice bulbs from Woolworths, but they are now no more. Bulbs I've bought from Wilkinsons include;

20 Dutch Iris - I grew these a couple of years ago. I planted them around this time of year, and then were all up and budding up just before we went on our 2 week holiday to Florida. Upon arriving home, there were 50+ gorgeous Dutch Iris in flower, and they were truly amazing!!! I think I bought them from poundland that year, and might buy some more from there this year as well, but here's a couple of pics of them from that year. Sorry they're not great, they were taken with the old camera;





I've also come home with 6 Lilium Oriental Mixed Colours (am on a lily addiction this year!), 10 Sparaxis Harlequin Flower Mixed (haven't tried these before, they look quite pretty), 10 Babiana Stricta Mixed Colours (again, haven't tried these before, but look pretty as well), 20 Tigridia Mixed (tried these last year without much success, but they were kept rolling around in pots all season so what should I expect!!!), 15 Anenome De Caen Mixed (have grow these before, they very pretty and easy to grow) and 30 Freesia Double Mixed, which I bought as they look quite pretty, plus they're supposed to be fragrant, so should provide some nice scent around the patio.

And there's more!!! Now we move onto the poundland buys - a 100 bulb collection, consisting of 25 Anenome De Caen, 50 Liatris Spicata and 25 Oxalis Iron Cross, which should all give some interesting plants, and should at least flower next, if not this year, 4 Incarvillea (Hardy Gloxinia), I grew these the year before last and they were absolutely gorgeous, but couldn't find bulbs anywhere last year and seed was expensive! Am glad they're back this year, hoping they'll grow as well again, 8 Scented Lilies Oriental Mixture, again bought for the colour, lily addiction and scent! And finally, a pack of 4 Lily 'Black Out' and 4 Commelina, both of which look pretty and make a nice combo.

Phew!!! So all in all that's around 231 bulbs for £16, not bad at all in my opinion! Will keep you all updated as to how they grow.

Here are some pics of Lilies I've grown in previous years. If anyone knows of any varieties similar to those in my last three picture, or where I can buy some, please let me know as they were gorgeous lilies with the markings, but despite there being a good range in GC's this year, I can't find any that look like those.








Enjoy!

Giant Colocasia!!!

Last year, a local shop, Wilkinsons (a sorta buy all sorts of things cheap store for all of my non-UK readers), stocked a very good range of tropical plants and bulbs in Spring, ranging from brugmansias and gingers to tree ferns and palms! Being a person always looking out for a bargain, I had to give some of these things a try!

I bought a couple of tree ferns (I'll save those for another post) plus many other things, but the items I bought that relate to this post are some Colocasia tubers. They were sold as Alocasia and were £2.99 I think, and I bought several as several people had had excellent results from similar tubers purchased from the same shop the previos year, with leaves nearing the 1m mark in length!!! Anyway, these tubers were probably at the most 2" in diameter, which is pretty big compared to normal bulbs! In high hopes for some 'mammoth' sized plants, I potted them up into large pots and set them going on the heat mat mid February;Over the coming weeks it grew at a fabulous rate, definitely living up to the fast growing and living plants that the tubers had produced in previous years. After just a few weeks of growth, the leaves were nearing the 1 foot mark already;
And around, I think, early May, they were transferred to the heated propagator in the greenhouse, where I was hoping they would toughen up a little and harden off;The growth slowed down over the new week or two, although I guess that is understandable as it is still cooler compared to the conditions in the house! In late May, it was planted into a half barrel outside (once again in high hopes for a large plant) and the root system was simply bulging out of the pot, yet another good sign. However, from there on it simply refused to grow, pushing out just another 2 or 3 measley leaves during the entire Summer. This probably had something to do with the weather as last Summer wasn't the best for tropical plants I guess, but the sucess people had the previous year was not to be found with many peoples plants, although many people produced decent plants given the weather!!! It has been 'rumoured' that the variety of these bulbs is Colocasia Esculenta 'Mammoth', which is supposed to be a very vigorous variety, with, as the name suggests, 'mammoth' sized leaves! However, as no proper tests have been done, I guess we'll never find out. If they stock them again I might give another one more a go but we'll have to see.

BUT there is hope on the horizon!!! Whilst doing out whirlwind tour of the local Garden Centres, imagine my shock when I saw some bulbs three times the size of any I'd ever seen before!!! Low and behold, they were of course Colocasias, although the variety/species name was not given. At £4.50 a piece I just had to give one of these ago, so I bought one of these giants home with me, and he has now been named Bobby. He weighs in at a hefty 2kg, and here are some pics;This is the top of the bulb, where I'm hoping it'll shoot from;
And you can see here at the base of the bulb where the offsets have been removed, which I'm guessing will be propagated to produce this years harvest!

It has been suggested that bulb size has in fact nothing to do with the size of the plant produced, and while there is no actual Scientific evidence that there is a link between the two things, one would assume that the larger the storage tuber, the more energy contained thus at least the more vigorous and fast growing the plant will be? Either way, I have a good feeling about Bobby! He'll be potted up ASAP, and I'm hoping to get a bell jar to put over him while he's on the heat mat, just to increase the humidity a little bit! I'll keep you updated!

Has anyone else had any experience with the Wilkinsons or similar Colocasias, or with some of these 'giant' bulbs? If so, please let me know and leave a comment below!

Garden Centre!!!

Well, I didn't get around to sowing my seeds today.

But we did get to go to the local Garden Centre! Haven't been for several weeks so it was nice to be back in plant land once again. Unbelievably, they still had some Christmas stuff in at 75% off! It felt weird seeing Christmas stuff again, as it seems like ages ago now, but we couldn't resist a few bargain buys, mainly tea light holders for dad!

Anywho, on the more interesting side - THE SUMMER BULBS HAVE ARRIVED!!!

I love seeing stand after stand of gorgeous Gladioli, delectable Dahlias and luxurious Lilys. So now, for me anyway, Spring has begun in earnest, even if the calenday says different. Seeds have been sown, and bulbs have been bought.

I got some gorgeous Dahlias (they're all on the National Dahlia Collection website if you'd like to see a pic, but the website's giving me some problems tonight so I can't get pics to show you what they look like);

• Marlene Joy
• Garden Festival
• Bodacious
• Kaleidoscope

I'm getting to be quite a fan of Dahlias now - I especially love the brightly coloured ones, and the bicolored ones, and the collarettes, and the giant waterlily types, and the ones with the curled up petals, and the...so anyway, I digress! I might buy a few more different types from the NDC as they have an even better selection and some excellent colour combinations. I only bought one variety of Gladioli ('Little Darling') but I'll probably wait until the GC get the rest of their Spring bulbs in and hopefully they'll have some of those big bags of 40 bulbs, and I'll pick up one of those too.

I also discovered another one of my Canna 'Crozy's Hybrids' has emerged today ;) Not sure what's going on next weekend yet, although I'm sure I'll find some more seeds to sow!