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April 2000

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  • All Aboard - Destination Unknown By Virginia Bickel

     This story takes four children: Amanda, Peter, Laura and Jason from New York City to a small town in west Texas and describes good times and bad times as they grow from childhood to adulthood

    STOP PRESS

    Virginia Bickel's newest book Come September  has just been released. Order it now!

      In Virginia Bickel?s second book, she turns from historical fiction to mystery. Come September is the story of Daniel Lindsey?s quest to identify the young woman found unconscious in front of his store, and to find out what she was doing on Mesa Street, in El Paso, Texas.  She brings to this genre her skill with character development and dialogue. You won't be disappointed.

    Dr. Sarah Barlow

     

     

     

     

     

    April 2000 May 2000 June 2000
    July 2000 August 2000 September 2000
    October 2000 November 2000 December 2000

    Please click on the thumbnails to view the pictures full size.

    ALF4.JPG (78974 bytes) The mission was started on Monday the 3rd of April in the year 2000. On that day I took the cuttings that will hopefully provide show winning exhibits for the two delegated flower shows in August of 2001. I took cuttings of Waveney Sunrise (a particular favourite of mine, makes an excellent standard) Gordon Thorley, a very good upright fuchsia named after a local judge, Come Dancing, an old favourite, Herald, another old variety, Star of Pink, which can make a large bush, Pink Marshmallow and Phyllis, another two old, but good varieties. The photo is of all the cuttings outside on a garden table.

    I will be taking lots of photographs of the cuttings as they develop and keeping this information up to date week by week. When preparing the cuttings I take small tip cuttings when I remove them from the plants, these consist of the fresh, green growing tip of the current years growth, together with one pair of leaves. I always find that the smaller the cutting, the quicker it will root. 

    ALF4.JPG (78974 bytes) I root the cuttings in pots or trays of peat based potting compost mixed with perlite. These are well watered in to help the compost settle around the base of the cutting. The pots or trays are then placed in an electric propagator and covered with the clear plastic cover to retain the humidity. They are not watered again and are usually rooted in between 21 to 28 days. The photo is of a tray containing cuttings of Come Dancing, Gordon Thorley, Herald, Pink Marshmallow and Phyllis.
    ALF4.JPG (78974 bytes) This is a shot of a three leafed cutting of Waveney Sunrise that will be grown on to make a standard. A cutting with three leaves instead of the usual two produces more branches and thus is much more bushy. This cultivar makes an excellent standard.
    ALF4.JPG (78974 bytes) A small pot of cuttings taken from Star of Pink, another favourite of mine, this particular fuchsia can, given the right growing conditions, be grown into a very large pot plant. I have a couple of plants of this that are now five or six years old, they are still covered in blooms every year.
    ALF4.JPG (78974 bytes) This one is my favourite fuchsia of them all. I've won more prizes with Waveney Sunrise than with any other cultivar, it makes a first class bush, standard or basket plant. It is also reasonably hardy in the area (East Midlands) in which I live. I'm hoping that these small cuttings will produce large plants ready for the shows in August 2001.
    April 19th 2000
    Disaster! The mission suffered a setback today. I had been working in the greenhouse when a visitor knocked at my front door. I left the plants and went to talk to him, forgetfully leaving the plastic cover off the heated propagator. The cuttings in it (shown in the second fuchsia picture on this page) were badly damaged by the bright sunlight, and many will not recover. I may save about 50% of them, so will have to carry on with a reduced number of plants. The cuttings of Waveney Sunrise and Star of Pink that were in the small pots are still fine, and they're looking good. Lets hope that this is the first and last snag that we hit in our pursuit of a first prize. With a bit of luck we will soon be back on track.


    Send  to Alfie Geeson with questions or comments about this web site.

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    Last modified: December 23, 2006 20:40:53

           

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