¶ Tom’s background in gardening.
Hello, today I've got a very special guest with me today. I've got Tom from woolman's and Alan, Tom will introduce himself in a moment. But woman's are specialists in Deus and presents, amongst other things. They were going to be talking about De Beers. So, Tom, no further ado, would you like to introduce yourself?
Sure, yeah. My name is Tom Simpson. I've been in the horticultural industry really, from a work point of view ever since I left school. But my first I suppose, my interest in gardening stems right back from when I was a very young child through my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
And I suppose one uncle in particular, my great uncle Vic used to be a head gardener for an estate in Leicestershire, and used to work in a wonderful a walled garden, where there were he used to grow so many dailies, and especially dailies, but also, amongst other things, but and I just remember there being rows and rows of these wonderful flowers, all colours, all shapes
and sizes, all flower types. And I think from that sort of early age that got me pretty much hooked on Daly's, and I've loved them throughout my, my working in adult life, really. So I studied for a Bachelor of Science degree at Writtle College in Essex. And for a time I, I work for a garden centre chain. My dad was sort of in the cut flower industry a little bit for a company on the south coast. And then I ended up working for womans, and I've been there now for over 20
¶ What’s the current trend towards dahlias?
years. So it's quite quite a long time. So now I I'm my sort of title is head of horticulture, I head up our buying team, and I'm responsible for the range planning for our catalogue and the content on our website. And along with my colleagues, we work to display as many different varieties of data as we can. It's a moving feast, it's forever ongoing. So yes, that's sort of my sort of immediate background, I suppose.
That definitely is a trend towards dailies. Now, I think it probably historically was great, and then took a dip and now it's on the rise again, I've seen as growers and the demand and everything is very Daliah focused, which is brilliant. Have you seen the same trend?
Yes, definitely. Because when we first we, we've been trialling dailies for years. And we have about a hectare of trial garden, at our office in Suffolk. And I suppose we tried about 100 varieties every year. And yes, when to start with. From a sales point of view numbers were really quite low. But I think as people have, I mean, we've worked quite hard to gain really excellent imagery. We focused on varieties that are good and easy to grow.
And we've definitely seen a rise up the last five years, and especially through the lockdown sort of years as well, with more people gardening, dramatic rise, and I think it's their colour. They're so vibrant, full of colour. I think people are starting to fall in love with them again. Yeah, definitely. I
spoke to Beck's Partridge this week, who's written a book called everlastings. And she talked about even drying dalias, which is very interesting to get you through the winter. You know, obviously, as a flower grower, it's lovely to have something in the winter as well. And I've never thought about drying day as but that's quite an interesting new sort of proposition. Really,
I suppose actually, yeah. When you if you think about it, I suppose if you can get them before they get too mushy, cutting them hanging them upside down as you would alliums, I suppose really? Just making them wants to drain out, then yes, I can see that. From a, you get that lovely Chris sort of display a bit like hydrangeas that have dried. Yeah, I could see especially the different flower types. If you've got balls, decoratives, water lilies, all those different flower shapes
together. could look really wonderful. Yeah, absolutely.
¶ When do you plant out Dahlias?
So that was another use. I thought Davia is all year round. What could be better? Could be wonderful. So I've just got some questions that I'll fire off if that's okay, Tom. Sure. So, when do we plant out ideas?
Well, I always my personal thing is I always like to pop them. So I tend to plant mine sort of early April. And I start to whether I'm buying new ones or whether I've kept them from overwinter whether I've lifted. But that tends to be late March early April. I tend to put them in a three litre pot and let them grow and start to shoot. And I do get Then protection at that point. So I found generally, I just keep mining and my coal greenhouse.
And if I, if we get an unexpected bout of coldness, I will just cover them over with fleece. But generally I found them to be fine. So then I, I don't think develop, get the pots to be quite full of root, nice, strong and sturdy shoots. Before I plant out generally middle to end of May. That's my sort of time for doing it. Yeah, because,
you know, it's almost like you're playing with the weather, aren't you? When's the last frost? You know? And some people say, Oh, it's the 21st of April, and we've had frost in May.
Yeah, absolutely. But if you, if you haven't got space to pot up, then I think mid May is a good time to plant
¶ What should you take into account when you’re planting your Dahlia Tuba
outside. And very often on our trials ground. We have done that in the past where we've just planted directly into the ground around the middle of May, they soon quickly start to shine. So amazing.
I love them. So when as a flower grower, I definitely love them. So what should you take into account when you're planting your your tuber your daily Aduba? What do you need to think about?
Would I think overall site is in is important, lots of Science Daily is don't like to be in the shade. Nice full sun position. And if you've got ideally just a little bit of shelter. So if you've got planting up near a screened age, or a low ish fence, or if you can't provide that shelter, they might just need a little bit of support, especially for some of the taller artists. Taylor's love feed. So and loads of it, lots of feed and lots of water. But they don't like to be
waterlogged. So it's a bit of a almost an oxymoron in the sense. They want loads of water and feed but they don't like to be sitting in it. So good free draining soil, but pretty humorous, Rich. And I mean our site on our trials ground tends to be quite free draining we can have a huge downpour, but it does dry out quite frequently. So we incorporate lots of muck, literally good old fashioned organic manure, we turn the soil over really well to spades depth is the best, again that you can
beat it really. And then yeah, just lots of water and feed really throughout. I tend to feed with a high nitrogen feed up until we get into June. And then I start to switch to a high potash feed as we get towards the end of June, beginning of July to encourage all the flowering shoots.
Yeah, I probably don't feed mine enough, actually. Now you've just mentioned that. So that will be
Yeah, absolutely. Loads. Yeah,
I mean, we're in it. We use support because it's when we're in we're in a very sunny position as well drained and all the rest of it and we use manure. But so we're using support, we do support hours. But yeah, it depends on the variety of course. But yeah, more feeding is what I've
¶ What are some of your favourite varieties and colours?
learned today. Definitely more feeding.
Yeah, they're really hungry.
And I know I don't know how many varieties there are of dalias I think I read something ridiculous. This is 40 odd 1000 or something really?
Is 10s of 1000s here Yeah,
I think I read 47,000 somewhere. So it's very impossible to think we're the best ones for cutting. But what are your personal favourites? Are your top five or No, I know it depends. You know, if you're a wedding flourish, you'd be growing very sort of people going lots of the whites and lots of pinks, but you know, we bishops We grow lots of bishops and very bright colours. So what would be your top five and why?
Well, I suppose from God you know, I think it's almost impossible to be a top five but I think I do have definite favourite colours. And I do love sort of plums and purples, oranges, I think. I mean I do love varieties like profundo which is a lovely rich plum colour. And it's wonderful for cutting it's a bowl type. And I think I do have a bit of a tendency to go for the ball types in the smaller decoratives just because they last so well
in the past fall. Yeah, definitely more so than the larger decoratives so for me for plums and purple colours, I love profundo I love a variety called Valeska which is really gorgeous. It's I mean it does have bits of yellow in but it's that gorgeous crimson e plum colour is just found I love it. And, and there's another gorgeous four articles are konia
which I really love as well. And some of those are artists we we created a collection last year to even have been the year before Actually, we do so many of them that I sometimes forget which year we've introduced them, but we called it the black currant because he's collection Leafly because it's full of those gorgeous, rich, sort of plum purple tones. So I do love those colours for definite, and
I love the oranges. And I think my favourite orange would be David Howard, by a longshot, and I, I love it because I love his height. I love it because it's quite sturdy. So I've never
¶ What are you favourite varieties?
stayed mine at all. They seem to cope quite well without any form of staking and they've so many flowers, I mean, you can cut bunches and bunches often. And of course the more you cut like all daily is the more you get. I think that's the one most important thing for daily Is this the cutting of them. The more literally it is, the more you cut, the more you get. And David House is wonderful for that. It has lovely tall stems. The flowers are a bit bigger
than a bowl. It's a smallish to medium decorative, but the orange is such an intense colour, the stems are dark, and the foliage is bronze. It's wonderful in a vase, especially if you've got like a blue vase or a rich sort of Navy coloured bars, plump them in there. They're just fabulous. And I suppose I also love dailies inputs. And of course the tulip varieties can be a bit problematic for that you do need quite a bit of support. But there is a variety called totally temporary, which is an
anatomy flowers. And I really love that the orange is so intense. And the petals sort of reflects back as the flowers mature. And that is wonderful in a pot. So I have five or six of those dotted around my my sort of back sort of doorsteps, and they're really wonderful. So I suppose could they just a few of my favourites? I could go on.
I know, this is the type isn't it? Obviously
¶ Single flowers are more popular than ever before.
we're growing. We grow the open ones for pollination. So we get lots of bees. So that was great. Yeah, so the blue ones we love actually, if we're going to use as cut flowers, because they're better. Like you say they've got really good vase life, and they're quite sturdy. So yeah, we grow probably about 10 varieties, so maybe even more 15 varieties. But we cover the whole colour spectrum, right the way from Burgundy and oranges, two yellows to whites to pinks.
And that's kind of what we're how we're purchasing.
But yeah. Now, you mentioned the single flowers. And that is one area that yeah, we do. The bishop series is still very popular. I sometimes think the bishop series is not a very uniform series in terms of height. You've got a lot of variation there. But of course yes Bishop of Llandaff is is what is wonderful, isn't it? And I still think it's one of the best words. But I do quite like the happy series daily as and they are more uniform in height and brightest like happy single
party happy single kiss. Happy single flame. Those three are wonderful. They're lovely colours. And yeah, the bees love them there. You can hear the bees buzzing around. Which is great. And don't go to sales. But those are definitely more popular than they ever used to be. Yeah,
I think so I think there's a lot of you know, Dave Golson talking about bees and a lot more about environment. And I think people have sort of gotten to that, and then they buy some for pollination as well. So it's a mix of the real mix. So the age old question to lift or not to lift your daily as at the end of the season? Yeah, we I won't tell you what we do. But yeah. So not to lift?
¶ How do you know if your soil is free-draining?
Well, for me, I mean, I, I think, I think it is quite simple, really, I think if you're, if your soil is free draining, and it really does have to be free training. And I would say you're sort of may be the Midlands down, that's us. And where they are planted is quite sheltered, and you are able to mulch quite freely, then I tend to leave them in. So I leave mine in the ground. I say at home, I do that. On our trials site, we do lift them, because that's a little bit although the soil is free
draining. And that's that's just outside Newmarket, but the site tends to be a bit more exposed. So we do live on there. I think more than anything from a practical point of view because we need to keep the site free of weeds and we generally have a farmer come in and plough up our trails ground each year to keep it fresh and incorporate lots of organic near Uh, I would say, if definitely, if your soil is tends to be a bit on the heavy side, I would always let them
know for sure. And just, you know, let them dry out, totally turn them upside down, let all the water drain out. And then literally put them in a tray, cover them over with some very dry compost, sand or sawdust. And then just keep them in the dark, somewhere frost free until the weather picks up again, sort of March time, we can start and bring them to life again, just soak them and then pop them up or or plant them out a little bit later. So I think it really is where you live. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, we've never lifted ours. We did lift a few this year because wants to propagate from them. Yeah, but that was the only reason. So we've gone along with bamboo shoots, bamboo sticks and put Yeah, we quite like that one. We'd like that one propagated and we've got like that one would have that propagate. But generally not, we would definitely mulch, we'd definitely cover them up, we put them to bed, we make them nice
and toasty. And we leave them because actually the threat of lifting them and mice and looking after them and freezing and all of that over the winter was almost too much, really. But I think you're right, if you live in the depths of Scotland on you're going to get lots of snow and the temperatures are going to plummet and you're going to get lots of water on waterlogged, then you probably want to lift them.
I think so to be on the same side. Yeah. Well, that
¶ Tom’s advice for propagating from cuttings.
the year that's what I would, I would always recommend.
So on that last point about propagating, how do you propagate from dailies?
For me, the best thing I find is always cuttings. And you can and as they start to, I always do this quite early on. So it's this first shoot start to come up from the Chivas. So I'm talking about ones that I've potted. So once we get into April, early May, I will take from those shoots, because they're strong, they're healthy. So I think that's a very good time. And it also gives you enough time to get a decent plant that will flower
that summer. So yeah, I always think and I think you get better results from cuttings, because as well, it's always my preferred preferred option,
as to actually is to take from cuttings. So if people want to learn more about Daly, as I know, you've got lots of information on your website, Tom. And also if they want to come and have a browse and see what you've got, where do they find you.
So the best, the best place is on our website, that's where the biggest choice is. And that's where the most information is. So that's on www dot woman's dot com. Without all the information is on there, all the varieties are on there. There's also multiple images very often variety, where we don't have space in all of our catalogues to put all of those imagery and as much information.
But if you want a catalogue as well, you can phone our our order line as well, which is on oh eight for 56589137 and you can request a catalogue as well. And we have numerous catalogues, we've launched a daily a catalogue this year, called dazzling dailies. That's a new thing for us. It's got a vibrant front cover. So um, yeah, that's well worth a look as well.
I think it's just attractive. I've got it actually. I think it's just attractive as it is. So it's a nice sort of coffee table, but so it's quite nice. Okay, Tom, thanks very much. Tom and I will be talking present villains in another episode. But thanks very much, Tom for today and talking all about Deus Ex.
No problem has been my pleasure. Thanks so much. Thank you