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Another Convert! 1994 by Alfred Guy

For many years I used to admire PF’s in florists windows and on rare occasions at Flower Shows, and the wish to grown them slowly grew on me. A few years before retirement I thought the time was ripe to have an exploratory trial into the realms of PF culture and so I tentatively invested in a small trial collection. Well, they were a total disaster. Chrysanthemums (old favourites of mine) are so easy in comparison to Perpetuals and I soon found that PF’s were a totally different ball game which required a great deal of ‘know how’ followed up by meticulous attention to detail at each and every stage of their life cycle. Apart from incorrect stopping, watering, feeding and tying up etc, my final plants were subjected to a few heavy attacks of red spider mite. This was a pest which I had never seen before, and which puzzled me for some time until I discovered what was really causing the plants to look so bad. Needless to say after some abortive attempts to eradicate the red spider I had to abandon them.
However this initial failure did not diminish my love and admiration for PF’s so a few years later, and after retirement, this time I thought it is now or never, so I joined the BNCS and invested in their handy booklet dealing with the culture of PF’s. This booklet gave me a much better insight into PF’s, but being out on a limb on a small island in the Atlantic Ocean and with no-one else growing them locally I was unable to see and learn at first hand. This left me with many queries so I had to resort to writing to Eric (Mr Eric Allman). I have now had three separate long replies from Eric — both typewritten and in longhand — and these were most detailed and helpful. Indeed his services have been over and beyond the call of duty, having sent me a specimen PF wide ring which clips onto the flower cane, loaning me photographs and even the manuscript for a book which he had at one time hoped to have published on PF culture. A great pity they do not award OBE’s for services to budding PF growers.
Still wishing to see how other members grew PF’s I contacted Mrs Dimond and although severely handicapped by an arm injury she very kindly rooted through her files and let me have the names and addresses of a few members who lived in Cornwall. A couple of them, one in Bude and another about 40 miles away in Lanner generously showed me their PF’s and chatted about various aspects of their culture. The second gentleman was wondering if he had finally cracked the red spider mite scourge with a very dilute spray of Jeyes Fluid. I think he used one or two drops of Jeyes Fluid in a pint of water and sprayed the plants and canes once or twice each week. It was interesting to note that both these gentlemen quite independently of each other and without any prompting on my part, volunteered the information that they had found the plants from a certain Lancashire nurseryman to be of a very consistent and high standard.
My second venture into PF’s was more ambitious consisting of a collection of ten PF’s and ten spray PF’s. After about nine months I still have all twenty plants in spite of many unstable and minor attacks from red spider. What has surprised me is the diversity of shape, colour and form of the actual flowers — some are models of perfection and beauty,
some colours are excellent — others unattractive (to me) — some quite shaggy and messy, some with smooth petal edges, others with delicately serrated petal edges and yet others with such deeply cut serrations as to be almost raggy. One thing is for sure, there is certainly enough diversity to cater for all tastes.
Buying new plants from catalogues without first seeing both the nature of the full grown plant as well as the flower is not very satisfactory of course and amounts to ‘buying a pig in a poke.’ Catalogue descriptions of a variety can vary between catalogues, some being so sparse as to only give a one or two word colour description, which in some cases can differ from one grower to another. Some indicate small, medium or tall and others do not. Few, if any, mention the overall shape or size of blooms and whether the petals are smooth-edged, lightly serrated or deeply serrated so I am now having to resort to buying more varieties in order to find some which I shall like sufficiently to retain. In my far flung isolation it is unlikely that I shall take part in exhibiting so I shall be trying out both cut flower types (Sims etc) as well as show types.
Since buying the BNCS booklet on PF culture I have acquired both new and second hand books. I found a Foyles 1976 edition of ‘Carnations’ by Peter Allwood Fenn very useful but most useful of all a thick 1935 2nd edition of ‘Carnations and all Dianthus’ by Montague C Allwood. This book is well and clearly written, full of sound broad basics, with numerous black and white photographs. These photographs have been most instructive for me. The booklet also has a good index and abundant sub-headings in each chapter, and these two points for me turn a good book into a treasure. Obviously with a book of this age one has to occasionally make certain allowances, but until such time as Eric or some other PF expert writes a comprehensive book on PF’s I think that Mr Allwood’s book together with the BNCS official Carnation booklet, and the copious notes which I took from Eric’s manuscript, are going to be my guides for some time to come.