My Hobby is Waiting
Life is short, smile while you still have your teeth.
Yes, I am happy, and with good reason: All of our Daffodils have been planted. And there is more good news: I managed to stay below 1000 varieties this year. As a true Daffodil enthusiast, a Daffodil junk, if you will, this was not as easy as you may think. My own father, Karel van der Veek (to my frequent readers: yes, my son is named after him), had over 2500 varieties when he was the age I am now. And in addition to that, he also had about 1000 selected seedlings. I almost did the same thing: a few years ago, my own Daffodil field contained 1400 varieties.
It was all fun and games, but at some point, I was getting too tired to sleep whenever I was in a busy part of the year. That is when I decided to never exceed the 1000-variety-limit. A self-imposed rule, but I am very happy with it.
You may wonder what I do with all of these Daffodils. In Europe, we offer them in our web shop in the category ‘Fluwel Special Narcissus’. In the United States, they are sold via QDaffs. We hope to launch this season’s collection halfway through January. There will be over 400 different Daffodils, most of which I am sure you have never seen before!
But back to Burgerbrug, where my Daffodils are now safely in the ground. The one thing that was a bit of a bummer was the number of bulbs that had to be planted by hand. This happens when the variety is too small to plant with the tractor, as you see in this photograph.
This is an old photo, by the way. My brother Arjen is driving the tractor here, but nowaways, my son Karel has that job.
This is Karel in a photo that was taken a few days ago, somewhere in 2012. We ran into a massive field of kale, which is traditionally eaten with sausage here in The Netherlands. Back then, I captioned this picture with “But where is my sausage?!”
Kale and other types of cabbages are getting more and more common in our area. It is a suitable plant to give the soil a bit of a break from flower bulbs. It is bad for the quality of the soil to plant the same type of plant time after time, and in order to avoid the use of chemicals and pesticides, natural remedies like growing a completely different thing in-between bulb seasons are gaining in popularity rapidly. It is a win-win situation for everyone involved: fresh, locally grown seasonal vegetables for the area, and a well-deserved break from growing flower bulbs for the soil.
But you see me lose track of my story again. I was talking about planting Daffodils, I think. I wanted to tell you that among those 1000 varieties I mentioned, there are lots of tiny little varieties that have to be planted by hand. These are all new varieties and seedlings, that I will need to review and decide if they are good and pretty enough to continue growing them. Every year, I dispose of about 100 varieties. This year, there were almost 200. But not to worry: that number is easily matched by the number of newcomers in the collection. This constant change makes it all the more fun for both of us: Me, as the grower who gets to see new varieties, and you, when there is always something new to add to your garden. Of course not all of the new varieties can be sold right away, especially not when I hybridised them myself. But when the variety gets large enough, they become available. Those Daffodils also get to be registered as new varieties. This year, I registered about 50 new Daffodils, which will all be available in our Fluwel web shop in January.
Narcis Sunny Sunday
50 is too many to show in one news blog, so if you want to see them all, you will need to visit the web shop this upcoming January. Another thing, the first photo of this blog, smile while you still have your teeth, was taken during our team event with the Land van Fluwel staff. We went to Walibi, an amusement park here in The Netherlands (if you’ve been to The Netherlands a while ago, Walibi was known as Six Flags Holland until about 2004). It was a fun day. It had been years since I had been in a rollercoaster, and Walibi has one of those famous ones that have an hour-long line before you get to go in. My most loyal readers know that waiting is one of my cherished hobbies, so I had a fantastic time. We had a blast with the people waiting around us, everyone is usually excited in a line like that, so there are worse places to wait. It would be nice if all queues would have that type of energy, but that is probably wishful thinking. Anyway, the team event was great, it is always nice to close off another year together before Land van Fluwel’s winter break.
But again, back to the Daffodils: they are tucked in under a layer of straw to protect them from the cold.
Now that the Daffodils have been planted, I can get started on my Amaryllises. There are lots of new varieties in our web shop this year, and I am super excited to see them in bloom again.
If you haven’t thought about getting an Amaryllis yet, I really do recommend them. It’s a flower you can enjoy for a long time, and with very low effort. For that reason, an Amaryllis is also the number one flower bulb to use as a gift to someone, whether you want to buy something for a loved one or if you need a present for an acquaintance. You get double the positive reactions: first, when you give them the bulb, and then the second time when their bulb is actually in bloom. Maybe there is even a third time, if their Amaryllis makes an extra flower when you thought it was done for the year :)
Time to wrap it up, I will get started on my Amaryllises.
Kind regards,
Carlos van der Veek
