Pictured: Adam Taylor. Rebecca Brookhouse, Charlotte Daubney, Sam Buffin and Ian Clark
The specialist daffodil collection of Taylors Bulbs, based in Lincolnshire have worked their way through yet another nerve racking and tense build-up to put on a gold medal winning display of daffodil flowers at the Chelsea Flower Show. This Gold Medal is the companies 30th at Chelsea Flower Show and their 28th consecutive Gold with the first being won in 1986.
The display of 38 varieties and over 1100 flowers covers 12 weeks of flowering and is the result of over 15,000 flowers grown in controlled conditions every year especially for the show, featuring varieties which normally flower in the garden as early as January right through to early May.
Charlotte Daubney explains; “The bulbs are planted after Christmas and kept temperature controlled until they go into the greenhouse 4 weeks before Chelsea. In the first week we see leaf growth develop and then flowers beginning to form. This year has been a lot smoother than previous, although very heavy rain showers destroyed some of the selected varieties when we had thundery shows at the beginning of the month. Thankfully by that point quite a lot of the flowers for the display had already been cropped and put away safely in the cold store”
The flowers are cropped fully open and kept in cold store for up to 2 weeks before the show, they only have an average life span of a few days in the Grand Pavilion so the display is re-staged twice to keep the standard high until the end of show week.
Charlotte says “The weeks running up to the show are exhausting and very stressful but the whole team support each other, pull on their own strengths and hope nature allows us to put on a grand display. I’m particularly proud we are showing such a diverse range of varieties flowering at this time of year, it certainly amazes the visitors! You won’t see Daffodils from January to May in one day anywhere else!
