Free Range Office
No, the free range isn’t for our dear flower bulbs. I won’t try to tell you that we are sticking a vague supermarket promise about the life of cattle onto our bulbs—as you know, we love all of our flower bulbs equally, and we take care of them as well as we can, in the way that makes them most successful in your garden after you have purchased them for yourself. No, Free Range popped into my mind when I found out that all of our employees had made the decision to leave the warehouse be for the last hours of the day and go to the beach instead.
De Begonia velden zijn weer mooi 🤗
Now, the day in question was particularly hot, and I could not really blame them. The weather has been great for a while now, and I have to admit that I myself had also slowed down significantly because of it. Until now, no one has complained about having to work in these temperatures, and they have worked incredibly hard all season. But it’s not very smart to leave unnoticed: If they had asked me about it, I would have given them money for snacks and ice cream. Ha! Now I’ll have to keep that until next time, and I hope they’ll learn for the future.
I also need to thank Hanna this week. The wind blew her into our warehouse two weeks ago, and now she floats away again. She walked one of the neighbour’s dogs in exchange for a free bed in their house, and she came around asking to work for a few weeks to earn herself two more weeks of summer vacation. In this photo, Sigge gives her Dahlias from our Trial Garden as a thank-you.
Een goede foto hoeft geen uitleg…. ☺️
But I’m not feeling very relaxed as I’m writing this. There are many things left to do in the warehouse, and I just want to go back to work. I was planning on putting the Begonia in the spotlight this week. The harvest wasn’t the best this season, so we won’t be able to deliver the biggest tubers you have ever seen, but they will get the job done. They are fine, which is not the same as the Fluwel Quality you always hear me talk about, but I always want to tell you more about the flower bulb world, and this is part of it.
Begonia Ruffled Salmon
The Begonia is becoming one of my absolute favourites. I really do have high hopes that she will become just as popular as she was when our grandmother’s grandmother was gardening back in the day.
I also want to tell you about my most frequently asked questions when I talk to visitors during this time of year. I’ll move that over to next week, too, but if you know which question I’m talking about, you’re welcome to leave your guess in an email to us. Maybe you’ll see your question answered next week.
Kind regards,
Carlos van der Veek
