They are in there

And then suddenly they are in there. The two truffled beds you are looking at here are the maternity beds of our Narcissus maternity. That is also lame, you will now probably think, a photo with only sand, no one is happy with that. But I already have a Narcissus in bloom. An autumn flowering Narcissus. Do they exist? Yes, there are Narcissi that bloom in the autumn. This Narcissus does not have a name yet, I only have a few bulbs of it. It is a seedling obtained from the Narcissus viridiflorus. By the way, that is a completely unique Narcissus, a Narcissus with green flowers that blooms in the autumn. Narcissus viridiflorus

A very small flower, often more than 1 flower on a stem. In a few places in the south of Spain it blooms in the fall. Very nice but its flowers are so green and so small that you have to get on your knees to see it properly if you see it at all. Still, it is high on my wish list, I would love to have it in my collection. But that's where it goes a bit wrong with me...I want too much. This is the string of all the varieties that Karel planted with the planting machine when I was in England. That was really quite an experience, Karel planted all the Daffodils when I was playing in England and Ireland. When you come home, the Daffodils are in the ground, I've always been there my whole life, now it's done for you. Fantastic. Except for the maternity ward, Karel wanted me to do the manual labor with the truffle myself. No problem, that's a fun job, planting all the small and new varieties on your own in the middle of the country. The string with the maternity ward was just a bit longer than this string with the larger varieties, so you understand, I have too many. And yet I always have a wish list 😊 We are not the only ones planting, the whole road is planting. This is the white Heron that has been living near us for a year or so. She is looking in amazement at how the piece of land that was green the day before from the green manure has suddenly turned into a sandy plain. Another day later she stands amazed at a coloured straw plain, peering with a look of what the hell have I got hanging on my bike. In no time the entire coastal strip between Burgervlotbrug and Julianadorp changes into a large straw plain; the bulb farmers are planting. I have shown this photo before, it is from a year or so ago, I did not feel like climbing into the mill. But if I had done so, you would have seen the same thing. Nice in this photo, bottom left you can see the straw-covering machine of neighbor Ruud, who is coloring the last piece of land gold.

You're probably wondering what I'm going to do now that I'm done planting, but luckily I still had a job: planting the Amaryllises. Every year I plant two bulbs of each type in a pot to see if they're doing well and to see if it's the right type we sent.

444 pots. Marika and I have been happily planting over 150 different types, which is also way too crazy of course. Fortunately, I can now blame Vlad a little for this excess. Where is this going, I thought when I was potting. But to be honest, I think it is beautiful myself, but really, as crazy as I am about the Narcissus, Vlad is crazy about the Amaryllis. That is nice to tell, Vlad comes from Berlin and before he came to live in the Netherlands I visited him once. He lived in a small cozy house where I also stayed for a few nights. Not a big house, actually a small house, a kind of holiday home, a bit bigger perhaps. Comfortable though, nothing wrong with it, just nice, cozy and pleasant. Small bathroom with toilet, shower and bathtub. Now comes the thing, when I was sitting on the toilet for a moment and looked around me I counted, you won't believe this, 42 pots and pots with Amaryllises. On the windowsill, on the edge of the bath, on the dressing table, on the floor really everywhere were pots large and small with Amaryllis bulbs. Amaryllis addiction of the highest order 😊

The next job will probably be planting peonies. In front of our solar meadow on the roadside there is a nice strip of land, where the Dahlias have been growing in recent years. There are still a few of them in bloom, by the way, it hasn't frozen here yet, there is still a bit of colour on it. It's unbelievable how long a Dahlia can last. Before I digress, back to the peony and the daffodil. I think they go very well together. I will plant them alternately, 10 daffodils per square metre, 2 peonies, then 10 daffodils again and so on. All the varieties that we offer in the Fluwel web shop will be planted there. Then I will leave them there for years, hopefully decades, so that I can later draw the conclusion that the daffodil has indeed naturalised better than the peony, which in turn has hopefully naturalised better than the daffodil.

Nice job, I'm looking forward to it. Who knows, I might tell you more about it next week. I'm going to stop again, nice to get outside again.

Kind regards,

Carlos van der Veek