Saturday, June 18, 2011

How to grow delfiniums

P6160321.JPGPeople sometimes ask me how I grow delfiniums. Not an unique way, just how people do when they grow flowers. I seed some delfinium seeds in autumn ( I used to seed some in spring before ). And transplant them again and again to do #8-#10 size pots or into flower beds. This pic shows the pots I seeded some into last autumn. Depends on each and ever delfinium, some grow faster and some do slower, so some of them still stay in the same pots even now.


P6160320.JPG Transplanted once into a bit bigger pots. I did it in this spring.





P6160319.JPGSome that grow faster are already transplanted into #6 size pots. Probably they don't get in bloom this rainy season yet, but may do in autumn. More than 1 year needed for delfiniums to be in bloom after being seeded judging from experience here in Hakuba. In average, let's say 2 years needed for it.
In cool place like Hakuba, delfiniums survive for some years, but they are not strong enough for hot and humid weather, so if it's along the Pacific ocean side western than Kanto region, they survive less than a year. Every year you will find some of them don't germinate, maybe 20-30 per cent of them don't.

If you would like to seed some delfiniums, pay attention below. 
#1- Choose when it's around 15-20 C, it's the best temperture for delminiums to germinate, but if it's over 23C, they don't.
#2- Their seeds don't survive long enough.

With reasons above, if you can get some fresh seeds, I recommend you to seed them in autumn. But if you "buy" some from seeds shop etc, probably it's harvested at the previous year, so maybe you are to seed them in spring.


Hayaokidori website

Friday, June 17, 2011

Delfiniums are in bloom

P6160318.JPGFinally delfiniums are in bloom now. Just a couple of pots are in bloom now, hopefully it'll go one after another soon.

Hayaokidori website

Friday, June 10, 2011

Delfiniums are ready for bloom

P6100290.JPGAt this time of the year - just begining of the rainy season - delfiniums grow a lot to get bigger and bigger. Some of them reach 2 meters in height. Now they are ready for bloom, many buds are put around. I love their blue-azure color which changes time to time and angle. No other flowers can look like them.

I tried to seed them in autumn last year for the first time. I always did it in spring but found their seeds didn't survive long so I just tried and got better result.P6060276.JPGThe pot in a black one is what i seeded last year and already replaced from a small pot. Now i have to transplant it to the bigger unglazed #6 size pot. With this way you can make a strong pot because when you transplant a pot again and again making the pot bigger and bigger, their roots grow constantly. Probably it takes around 2 years for delfinium to be transplanged in a flower bed by me. while they are small, I don't think they can survive in a flower bed.
I look forward seeing the blue-azure color this summer as well!

Hayaokidori website

Sunday, May 29, 2011

My old ED100 is back!

One of my blog reader offered me to transfer my old ED100 model train locomotive to him to get repaird as he saw the difficulty to replace the engine. It seems that the situation was tough even for him, my loco was transfered somewhere else again to get repaird. Finally it got back to me the other day to run in the layout again, yay!

Thanks for everyone who took care of my old ED100.
Wish I could do this kind of repairing by myself.
Seems that everyone has something good at and something not good at :(



Hayaokidori website

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Dog teeth violet- Katakuri flowers

P4270154.JPGFinally dog teeth violets are getting in bloom. As we got more snow than usual this time, flowers tend to get in bloom latter than usual. Dog teeth vilet is our village symbol flower, as you see, they look like bowing like cyclamen.
You may be able to see dog teeth violet, pheasant's eyes and zazenso flowers together around Golden Week time. Why don't you join us here in Hakuba!?




Hayaokidori website

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Candle in the snow '2011

Finally we got enough bunch of snow on our flowerbeds to enojoy candles in the snow there.
NEC_0160.JPGI put candles and make fire on them when we got enough bunch of snow which I remove by my snowblower. Let's say approximately when it reaches 1 meter tall.
Bored if we can not find anything fun in this cruel long winter to survive. What do you find to enjoy in winter?

Hayaokidori website