On Wednesdays We Do Laundry

Tulip Password

It happens constantly this time of year: I have to get into my car to pick up some more flower bulbs at the last minute. It may sound like an inconvenience, but I like this part of the day: driving always calms me down and allows me to think about other things I still need to do. I’ve used handsfree car phone calls since they were invented, and I love using my car time to get back to all my missed calls, which are often numerous as I don’t usually hear over the fans whirring at full speed in the warehouse in order to dry out all the sands stuck to the bulbs.

I started with Theo. My regular readers know him from earlier stories, and he had something to tell me this week as well. He is a bit of a chaotic person, and he had ironically forgotten the name of Tulip Password. His son had laughed at him when he asked him about the name and said something along the lines of him never knowing any password at all, so this wasn’t that unexpected. One of those funny moments.  Narcissus Iwona, a small and happy Daffodil. She does great in the garden as well as in flower pots. We will offer her in our web shop starting next year! 

Theo also called to charm me into another one of his Daffodils: Iwona, this time. He wanted to give me a couple of them so I could see them in my own garden, as I might like them enough to add them to our Fluwel assortment next year. I went over to get the bulbs and found Theo in the back of his warehouse, where he was zooming around on his forklift and making sure all Anemones were being washed properly. I was delighted about this, as this is something I would really like to show you. Theo’s laundry room may look a little bit different from yours: Not exactly the same machine that is eating socks in our homes  This is what the bulbs look like when they go in… …And how they come out

The little rabbit droppings are the baby bulbs of Anemone blanda. This flower multiplies by way of seeds. The rabbit droppings don’t make smaller bulbs on the side like Daffodils do: If you want to make more Anemones, you have to do it through seeds. These little bulbs have been in the ground for two years now. They need another year in the field before they’re big enough to be sold in the web shop.  Anemone blanda

This little flower occasionally does a fantastic job of multiplying in your own garden. It’s very difficult to really explain or know why they do or don’t do well, so I can’t make any promises on that. I just know that if the Anemone is happy with her spot, she will show up year after year, and if she’s not a fan, she’ll quietly disappear. My advice would be to just give it a go: Anemones are very affordable, 50 of these bulbs for 7,60 Euros, so you can spread them around your garden in smaller groups and just see where they keep coming back to you. 

Before we go on to different flower bulbs, I wanted to tell you something fun that happened this week: We baptised Daffodil ‘Bregt’. Readers know our very best employee this season has been Bregt, and to thank her she could pick a seedling to be named after her.  We made it a bit of a celebration for the occasion: Champagne, a little bit of it for the Daffodil, and then the rest of it to share with the team.  Narcissus Bregt 

Like I said, Bregt chose her own Daffodil from the seedlings, and it made me very happy to see that she chose one of the best and most beautiful ones. This Daffodil has a fresh colour, she is very healthy, and she flowers abundantly, too. She’ll be available in our web shop next year, too.

I wanted to go on about another bulb, but I have to confess that I am actually quite busy at the moment. I need to get back to the warehouse: Our customers in Chile have ordered Daffodils again, and those flower bulbs are inspected extremely thoroughly before they’re allowed to be shipped there. We have to prepare for the person that is coming over to do the inspection, and after that, we’ll have tons left to do with QDaff and Fluwel Specialty Daffodils. I’ll tell you more next week!

Kind regards,

Carlos van der Veek