On Sun, 18 Jul 2004 23:23:06 +0100, "Brian" ---
'flayb' to respond wrote:


The Canadian work with identical twins is the most revealing.
Sweet peas certainly aren't as they used to be. I originally put it
down to the recent proliferation of new varieties and my failure to obtain
the correct seed~~ perhaps this is so? If not, then the breeders have done
us no favours.
Best Wishes Brian

As I said in the sweet pea thread. What you need are the old 'Eckford'
varieties (ie. pre Spencer) Google will take you to the Eckford Sweet
Pea Society who hold an annual show in Wem to celebrate Eckford's
varieties.
Rod

Weed my email address to reply.
http://website.lineone.net/~rodcraddock/index.html

On Sun, 18 Jul 2004 23:23:06 +0100, "Brian" ---
'flayb' to respond wrote:


The Canadian work with identical twins is the most revealing.
Sweet peas certainly aren't as they used to be. I originally put it
down to the recent proliferation of new varieties and my failure to obtain
the correct seed~~ perhaps this is so? If not, then the breeders have done
us no favours.
Best Wishes Brian

As I said in the sweet pea thread. What you need are the old 'Eckford'
varieties (ie. pre Spencer) Google will take you to the Eckford Sweet
Pea Society who hold an annual show in Wem to celebrate Eckford's
varieties.
Rod

Weed my email address to reply.
http://website.lineone.net/~rodcraddock/index.html

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 17:06:20 GMT, lid
(Rodger Whitlock) wrote:

On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 11:52:17 GMT, Mike Fitzpatrick wrote:

My wife planted in large pots last autumn a load of Freesia bulbs. this year
we have had a fantastic display,cut and taken indoors for vases. What is the
procedure to get the same show next year? do I leave them in the pots and
over winter them in the greenhouse or leave them out. Any advise please will
be gratefully accepted.

An elderly gentleman, a gardener all his working life, now long
dead, told me years ago to grow new freesias from seed every
year. He overwintered his in a sheltered coldframe that he
covered with matting during spells of sub-freezing weather.

Years ago I used to keep my freesias going year after year, IIRC by
letting the pots dry out in the greenhouse (frost free) in autumn,
then re-potting all the bulbs and offsets in fresh compost next year
to get them growing again. The numbers increased steadily, BUT over
two or three years, all the reds, purples etc died out, and all I had
left were yellows.

We were given a bunch of freesias a few months ago, but they had
absolutely no scent. Most disappointing. Is this the result of
intensive breeding to get earlier/bigger/whatever flowers?


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net