Bulb & Flower Information

The flower name is first followed by a number which indicates its time of flowering in Tasmania, Australia

No.1 for flowering in August;
No.2 for the first week in September;
No.3 is for the second week;
No.4 for the third week:
No.5 for the last week
and No.6 for those few flowering in October.

The variety’s seeding number is in brackets with the last number being the year of its first flowering from seed.

Then the variety’s parentage followed by stem length and the flower’s diameter both measured in millimetres.

The colour number in the description is as close as we can match with the R.H.S. 1986 colour chart.
The recent written descriptions are as close as we can get using the International Daffodil Registrar’s descriptive terms.

We do not mind how early a cultivar flowers. We pick it soon after it has fully developed and while the pollen is still fresh, write the cultivars number or name on the stem with a water-proof pen where it will not be seen when staged, straight into water and into the fridge ASAP.

This does also reduce the chance of weather damage. They are stored in clean water in the fridge taking care to keep the petals from touching a neighbouring flower, and there they stay until the day before the show.

Some people occasionally mist the flower head with a fine spray of clean water but we do not bother. The fridge should be at 0 to 2 degrees centigrade. A thermometer would be fine but we just put a shallow saucer of water in the fridge, keep turning down the thermostat until the saucer water freezes, then turn it up a little so the water has just melted.

Keep checking the saucer in the fridge as its water will freeze before the flowers, and freezing the flowers solid is the only danger. Phil Rowe kept a bloom of RENOVATOR for 6 weeks and won!. Try it.

Some of the blooms photographed in this catalogue were refrigerated and held up for a three day show.