The Photographer's Visit

Craig Taylor came to visit the Gerbera Farm yesterday. He and his wife were quite amazed at the variety of colours of the Gerberas and I showed him the Florist catalogue that we get from Holland each year.

I gave them some of the flowers, so he took them home. His photography is very creative, so I am keen to see what results. They have some product on one of their websites using his flower photos, so I am hoping to get some Gerbera product at some time.

I showed him the photo of the frog on the flower - one of those rare photos that has"right time, right place" about it. Green frogs are rare in the hot house, and to find one nestling on the petals of a flower was extra ordinary. And for it to wait while I raced to my car to get my camera was extra ordinary too.

The production of flowers is a bit low right now - I guess the plants are recovering from the last flush, and the facat that we have spent a lot of time removing excess foliage. "Deleafing" we call it. It is amazing how much the leaves grow and block out the light to the crown of the plant which results in poor flower production. It is a never ending job.

We are planning to go overseas in 2008 - and it occurred to me that to get to Holland from London is pretty easy and cheap. I'd love to visit one of the big Gerbera Growers in Holland. We are hoping we can schedule in such a visit. I'm quite excited about the prospect.

The weather plays havoc

Not a really good time - production is down, we are still plagued by the brown apple moth, which seems to defy the chemical we have sprayed. The heat and humidy along with the cloudy days has not been good for the flowers.

Normally we would put special white paint on the roof by October, but we've only just done it on hothouse two. There is not a lot of light - with the clouds and the flowers love light.

We are told that in Holland, the light is artificial as there is not enough natural light even during the day. If one flies into Holland at night apparently the ground is lit up with the lights encouraging the gerberas and other flowers to flower. Seems that the Dutch are surprised how might daylight we have here.