Reading Glasses

It’s an amazing difference compared to last year, the way the Begonia plants are in full bloom in the Belkmerweg.

I’ve been thinking about the Begonia plants all summer: They deserve a little bit more time in the spotlight, with how well they are doing at the moment. I have received many photographs from friends and family who are seeing their Begonias in bloom. I was curious to see how they would do this year, as the tubers were not the largest when they were dug up. They weren’t bad, by any means, but we would have liked them just a little bit larger. So you can imagine how happy we were when they performed so incredibly well when they were planted! Did you know that every Begonia you see in this field was just a little seed last spring?

These are the seeds, they look like sand. Sneeze and you lose them.

With an ingenious machine, these tiny seeds are planted in these little squares.

After about a week, the Begonia is born. This picture was taken around the end of January. From that moment on, they are kept in a greenhouse. Until the end of May, they will be taken care of like they are royalty, and then they are transferred to a larger plate so they can be planted outside. The results of that are what you saw in the first photograph of this newsletter. That is also where we get the Begonia tubers you buy in our web shop!

What else? I saw in my mailbox that I had been nominated for a Nobel Prize:

Hi Carlos, Glad you got home safely. We received your Newsletter. You said some lovely kind things about us - and told the world that I'm an alcoholic !!!🤣🤣🤣🤣 We now plan to nominate you for the Nobel Prize for flattery. Keep Well and Happy.
B & B

More good news: Amaryllis grower Marko Penning has given me the opportunity to sell some Amaryllis bulbs from his show greenhouse. They are going to be small quantities, about 15 varieties of Amaryllises that are usually not easily available.
Amaryllis Pink Symphony

The reason you don’t usually see these varieties is that they are mostly used on the flower-side of the industry. Growers grow either the bulb or the flower, not both. Amaryllis growers who focus on the flowers don’t even dig the bulbs up every year, they just leave them be and harvest the flower again in the next year. But these are here now, and they are obviously very beautiful—otherwise the flowers wouldn’t be used, either.

Amaryllis Lion King

One of the varieties is Lion King. Some of you may think: Lion King isn’t that special, right? But she kind of is. She was introduced a while ago as the heir to the throne of red Amaryllises. I get why—I also find her one of the most beautiful red Amaryllises. But nearly all growers who started growing Lion King have stopped just as quickly: they grew too slowly, and did not really make enough new baby bulbs. All in all, she did not bring in enough money. But she sure is beautiful, and this could be one of the last years you can easily find her.

Amaryllis Revelation

The bulbs Marko harvested are all quite big, about 30 centimetres in circumference. But there are a few that are just amazing: nearly 40 centimetres. So who knows, you might get lucky and get one of those large ones.

If you have already bought Amaryllises, you can very easily add a new order to an existing one.

This is where the title of the blog finally comes in: When I asked Jacqueline and Pauliina how this worked, they said I might need to remind people of their reading glasses :)

Amaryllis Maestro

They get the idea that maybe not everyone reads everything on the website… they say that we tell the people during checkout that they can combine their orders, but sometimes, they skip that part and then email us about it… maybe we should also sell those reading glasses next year :)

But that is all in good fun. Combining your new order with a previous order can be done like this: during checkout, you see a box that says you want to add this order to a previous one. You click that, and then add the order number of your earlier order, and we do the rest. This way, you only pay for shipping once.

Time to go outside again. The leaves are starting to fall from the trees, which means it is time to start planting bulbs. I am almost ready, I have some Daffodils left over that I need to prepare to be planted, but that is it. I’ll tell you more next week.

Kind regards,

Carlos van der Veek

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