At our November meeting, Mickey Little entertained and informed us on how to choose and grow bulbs. This is timely advice for preparing a good show of blooms in the spring.

After training in horticulture at Cannington College, Mickey worked in local nurseries and gardens, including Hestercombe, and on a small Scottish island with a wonderfully benign microclimate, before coming south to work for Avon Bulbs.

Bulbs can be reproduced in three ways: from seed, vegetative bulbuls which are offsets of the original bulb and need to be re-potted several times to be ready for a display. Tissue culture through micro-propagation of clones of the parent bulb, where one parent can produce hundreds of identical offspring.

The richest area for bulbs in the world is Cape Province in South Africa. There are a wide variety of species and Mickey introduced us to slides and specimens of his favourites, which we were allowed to take home to create our own Vita Sackville West ‘Tussie-Mussie’ or posy! This included Nerine Bouderii, one of the Amaryllidacea, and varieties of Nasturtium, Alliums, Gladioli and Tulips.

Mickey described the challenges of having a good show of plants and taking them safely to exhibit at the Chelsea Flower Show, including the care needed to navigate roundabouts!

His final advice for having a great spring display of bulbs is get the biggest bulbs you can find, choose the right ones for your local conditions, plant them at the right time of year deeply in the soil. Arrange your bulbs in groups, not rows and restrict your colour palette.

On Wednesday, 13th December we will be having our Christmas celebration.

Trisha Jordan