The 2019 Lilium and Bulb show
Once again the annual show week-end has come and gone for 2019.
Our 2019 show was quite a surprise to us all.
During the year two of our major breeders and competitors moved and downsized.
Jeffery Bowden says that age is catching up on him, and his joints are all suffering because of arthritis, limiting his freedom of movement and time on his feet.
Greg Lawrence has sold his property in Summertown, and has moved down into the suburbs, and only has limited space for growing.
With this background, the number of exhibits expected in this year’s (2019) show was much lower than in previous years.
However… as President Greg Ruckert said today, “When I got to the hall on Saturday morning it was with trepidation in view of the withdrawal of two of our biggest exhibitors from previous years.
I walked in the door and my heart lifted when I saw the display in front of me.”
The difficult 2018 growing season not only reduced the amount of winter moisture in our soils, but the extended cool temperatures delayed flowering of many of the lilium species, and greatly delayed the drying off of our spring flowering plants.
We weren’t able to dig many bulbs until the last minute, and so the range of available species was very uncertain. Packaging and labelling was still being done on the morning before our doors opened to the public!
Not only did the dormant bulbs cause us concern. This year, we prepared a specially modified horse float to enable us to transport large numbers of growing liliums. Greg Ruckert drove to Eastern Victoria to collect our sales stock, and was due to arrive back at about 3pm on the Friday afternoon. Just after crossing the border on the way home, Greg was stopped by a line of vehicles in front of him, at that stage about 2Km long. The SA police had closed the main highway because of a serious bushfire! Not wanting to be late with his precious load (the weather was very hot), Greg consulted Google maps, and took to the dirt roads, and found a route around the fire threatened site. He arrived back at Hahndorf at 3:45pm! Note: The main road remained closed for about 5 hours!
Our 2019 show was quite a surprise to us all.
During the year two of our major breeders and competitors moved and downsized.
Jeffery Bowden says that age is catching up on him, and his joints are all suffering because of arthritis, limiting his freedom of movement and time on his feet.
Greg Lawrence has sold his property in Summertown, and has moved down into the suburbs, and only has limited space for growing.
With this background, the number of exhibits expected in this year’s (2019) show was much lower than in previous years.
However… as President Greg Ruckert said today, “When I got to the hall on Saturday morning it was with trepidation in view of the withdrawal of two of our biggest exhibitors from previous years.
I walked in the door and my heart lifted when I saw the display in front of me.”
The difficult 2018 growing season not only reduced the amount of winter moisture in our soils, but the extended cool temperatures delayed flowering of many of the lilium species, and greatly delayed the drying off of our spring flowering plants.
We weren’t able to dig many bulbs until the last minute, and so the range of available species was very uncertain. Packaging and labelling was still being done on the morning before our doors opened to the public!
Not only did the dormant bulbs cause us concern. This year, we prepared a specially modified horse float to enable us to transport large numbers of growing liliums. Greg Ruckert drove to Eastern Victoria to collect our sales stock, and was due to arrive back at about 3pm on the Friday afternoon. Just after crossing the border on the way home, Greg was stopped by a line of vehicles in front of him, at that stage about 2Km long. The SA police had closed the main highway because of a serious bushfire! Not wanting to be late with his precious load (the weather was very hot), Greg consulted Google maps, and took to the dirt roads, and found a route around the fire threatened site. He arrived back at Hahndorf at 3:45pm! Note: The main road remained closed for about 5 hours!
