Big news, bigger news, and a catastrophe
Dear Customer,
Today’s good news: As of today, the Peonies are back in our web shop and are ready to be ordered. Last year, we received many happy messages about them, and we’ve been sent lots of great stories and photographs of the results many of you have accomplished. We have done our best to put together a new assortment for this year, and I hope you will take a look at it.
Of course, not everything was completely fantastic. We also had a few people come to us to say that they had expected more of their Peonies. Sometimes, they sent along a photo of Peonies that were, in my opinion, very nice for a first-year plant, but sometimes there was indeed room for improvement.
Of course, not everything was completely fantastic. We also had a few people come to us to say that they had expected more of their Peonies. Sometimes, they sent along a photo of Peonies that were, in my opinion, very nice for a first-year plant, but sometimes there was indeed room for improvement.
This Peony, Pastelelegance, is the most expensive product our web shop has ever offered. Our supplier convinced me to offer them by telling me he was absolutely sure that this would be the first one to sell out once they went live. I’m excited to see if he’s right… for ‘just’ 105 euros per Peony… When I added them tot he list of varieties to be added to the web shop, our website expert Pauliina gave me a concerned phone call to ask if there had been a mistake in the list, and wanted to know if she should change something. When I told her it was correct, I could feel the look she gave me through the phone. We’ll see what happens!
“There is no business like show business” is a saying that sometimes also applies tot he flower bulb world. In this photograph, we see a beautiful older version of Peony White Cap. This plant has been around for a couple of years. When you order White Cap for yourself, you can expect to see this in your garden in its first year:
A much smaller plant. You can see through it, and there are probably two—if you’re lucky three—stems with a flower on top. It’s not the same as most of its pictures on our web site, and I do my best to manage expectations and to let our customers know that with Peonies, you will need some patience for them to show you everything they are capable of.
Here, you see a group of five White Cap Peony plants that have made themselves comfortable in this spot. They have been here for three years at this point. In their second year, there was a lot of improvement compared to its first try, but in my opinion, you need to give your Peonies at least three years before you can truly form a complete opinion. If it has a good third year, it is safe to assume that your Peony will continue to provide you with beautiful flowers for many more years to come. Give them some time to settle in is the best advice I could give you. Don’t panic or assume you have done something wrong if your results are underwhelming in their first year. Of course, when in doubt, you can always send us a photo of your plant and we will take a look at it for you, but usually, I can confidently reply to people with the message that they are looking good for a first-year plant, and that they can expect a Peony like the one they have seen in the web shop either next year or the year after that.
This is one of my favourite Peonies, by the way. She has a lot of flowers, with a fresh colour and—again, especially after two or three years—it’s an eye-catching plant that really brings a lot of colour to your garden. Last year, she was one of the first ones to sell out, so if you want to try her for yourself, don’t wait too long!
This was today’s big news. On tot he bigger news: The Beet is Live. If you click this link, you will be directed to a livestream of one of North Holland’s biggest events of the year: The infamous beet-growing championship. I’ve had people from all over the world ask for updates on the beet, and many times it was expressed just how unfortunate it is that the larger sports channels on TV do not take the time to broadcast such thrilling events. That is why we decided to compete with programmes like Tour de France—an easy decision to watch the beet instead, if you ask me—and establish our own channel. Luckily, my daughter Roos and her boyfriend Lout are around during the summer time to work on all of the Daffodils, and they have put together this contraption to make sure no one needs to miss even a minute of our dear beet growing up. Kids these days can put something like this together in no time, and I received a message from Roos with just the link and the caption “and the beet goes on”. So when you click this link (And the beet goes ON!), you too can follow this extraordinarily exciting race.
But to be completely honest with you after all this: there are lots of times during the year when this greenhouse is full of Daffodils or Amaryllises, and then, many people do in fact come over to see them in bloom. I hope our dear beet will be a good trial run to see if I can find a way to share all of the beautiful varieties we grow in this greenhouse with the many people who cannot just come visit us in The Netherlands.
Then, the catastrophe I mentioned. A very sad picture, as you can see. During a particularly warm week, I neglected to open the windows of our greenhouse. It must have been well over 50 degrees Celsius in there, and our beet was not too happy about that. Une Catastrophe.
But we are not football players dramatically falling to the ground when another person brushes their shoulder. No, we get up and with blood, sweat and tears, we continue the game. The beet has healed a bit and is still in the running.
You can even see for yourself!
Time to get back to work. The Daffodils are still being processed, and I don’t want to leave everyone to it while I type away about my beet.
See you next week.
Kind regards,
Carlos van der Veek
Carlos van der Veek
One last thing to show you all:
This enormous machine is busy turning over a massive pile of compost. Never seen it before, so i thought I’d show you, too.
