Trial: Annual
Year Trialed: 2007
Good Qualities
Good color (3); Easy to germinate, fast growing and early to go to field beds; Excellent; Wonderful fragrance; Early blooming; All plants that germinated lived, germinated well; Reliable in flowering, early; This was a very subtle, but striking color and worked well mixed with both softer and bolder colors in our mixed bouquets.Problems
Too short (2); No marketable flowers on any cultivar in series; None; Not a prolific bloomer, did not transplant well; I have never had any luck with stock of any sort; Very difficult to grow stocks in my climate, I have had hit and miss success, but not this season with this cultivar; We did not select but against single - in any of the varieties and each had less than 5% singles.Postharvest
Bleach in water.Trial Data
| Yield (stems/plant) | Stem Length (inches) | Market Appreciation Rating¹ | Repeat Again Rating¹ | Ease of Cultivation Rating¹ | Average Spacing (in2) | Average Postharvest Life (days) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wholesale | Retail | Consumer | |||||||
| Average | 1.2 | 15.1 | 1.0 | 1.5 | 3.7 | 2.5 | 3.4 | 74 | 9.7 |
| Range of Responses | 0.5-4 | 9-22 | 1.0 | 1-2 | 1-5 | 1-5 | 1-4 | 36-192 | 6-12 |
¹1 to 5 scale, with 5 being the best. Market ratings are based on sales to wholesalers, retailers, or final consumers direct.
Comments
Next time plant much closer and pull singles (although I used them for mixed bouquets no problem), loved all three colors; I'm just not set up to do a early spring crop- would work well if I had a high tunnel; All plants in the series looked good during the germination, seedling, and early growth phase as young plants in the greenhouse and as plants in the beds - however, when flowering time came the flowers were useless - one or two florets, stunted spikes and not harvestable; It just doesn't pay us to grow stock in the greenhouse and then outside it is short and not as nice, we really need to experiment with some hoops in the field to protect the plants and see if we can get larger flowers in the field, my customers would love that; Those planted in tunnel at 36 days after sowing were taller, stockier and with straighter stems than those kept in a warm greenhouse 1 week longer.