The specialist daffodil collection of Bulbs.co.uk, a division of Taylors Bulbs, based in Lincolnshire have been working their way through yet another nerve racking and tense build-up to prepare a display of daffodil flowers ready for the Chelsea Flower Show.
2023 marks a very special year for the show team where they will embark on a mission to achieve their 30th RHS Gold Medal Award for the collection.
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 will be 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 will be 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!
The display of Daffodils can be found in the Grand Pavilion, stand GDP052