A Down Under Travelogue 2012

By Kirby Fong

Copyright 2012 by the

Sponsored by the American Daffodil Society

• Founded in 1954 to promote a wider interest in daffodils• Create more exhibits of daffodils through shows and public plantings• Set standards for daffodil shows and judges• Promote and encourage scientific research on the genus Narcissus• Serve gardeners’ needs to learn more about all aspects of growing

daffodils

2

Visit the American Daffodil Society Web Site daffodilusa.org

American Daffodil Society Webstore stores.daffodilusastore.org/StoreFront.bok

DaffSeek – Daffodil Photo Database daffseek.org

3

I arrived in Claremont, Tasmania the evening before the daffodil show. The show included camellias and other flowers besides daffodils. Claremont is a suburb north of Hobart and is where Rod Barwick (Glenbrook Bulb Farm) lives. Note that standard daffodils are staged in green glass beer bottles. Exhibitors must furnish their own bottles! The show was September 1 and 2, 2012.

4

The Grand Champion bloom of the show was ‘Impeccable’ exhibited by Mike Temple- Smith.

5

The Reserve Champion bloom was ‘Ethel Breen’ exhibited by Ann Scarfe.

6

The Champion Seedling and Champion Miniature was M2/09-10/04 6Y-W exhibited by Kevin and Mary Crowe.

7

For you fans of split coronas, here’s the Champion Division 11 bloom – seedling 12-19 11aY-YYO (01-G1 x 11Y-Y ex Leongatha) by Mike Temple-Smith. I think the parentage means he got the pollen from an 11Y-Y in Leongatha, Australia.

8

You can’t tell from this photo but this is an intermediate size daffodil. It’s a new registration named ’Tannatea’ 2W-WP by Mike Temple-Smith.

9

This is the exhibit that won the John Mathews Perpetual Trophy. The class calls for 7 miniature daffodils, any divisions or varieties, not necessarily different, in one container. Presentation is to be taken into account in the judging. The winner was Rod Barwick with his seedling 38/03 which is either 6Y-W or possibly 6G-W.

10

Here is Rod’s seedling 6/2006 2Y-O. It’s a miniature. While the perianth form leaves something to be desired, the intensity of the orange in the cup is a major advance for miniatures.

11

After the Claremont show, there were a few days to visit daffodil growers and see local sites. One of the sites was the Bonorong Wildlife Refuge where you can see Tasmanian devils. After all, this is Tasmania!

12

This is a wombat.

Koala’s aren’t native to

Tasmania, but tourists expect to

see them anyway.

13

The Zoodoo Wildlife Park has mostly tame rather than wild animals. Most striking are the albino kangaroos. This one has a normal colored joey in her pouch.

14

The Museum of Old and New Art in Berriedale has mostly new art, and nearly all of the art is indoors. Here’s an example of outdoor, new art. At one point it was performance art, but now it’s static art for your viewing pleasure. The creation of this art work must have been an exciting moment, watching the car being driven into a space too narrow for it! (But is it art?)

15

The Hobart Horticultural Society’s spring show features daffodils , camellias, and floral art. The City of Hobart lends the use of its Town Hall and puts a small ad in the local newspaper about the show. As you can see, it’s an impressive venue. That’s the table of daffodil champions in the foreground. Until his retirement from exhibiting, David Jackson exhibited at this show. Without the Jackson exhibits, the daffodil section this year had about 350 stems. The show was September 7 and 8.

16

The Grand Champion bloom was ‘Voodoo’ 6Y-Y exhibited by Ann Scarfe.

17

The Reserve Champion and champion Division 3 yellow was ‘Avona’ 3Y-OOR exhibited by Helen Blowfield.

18

The champion miniature and champion seedling was (N. cyclamineus x 10/04) x ‘Mehmet’ 6Y-Y exhibited by Kevin and Mary Crowe.

19

Here’s another nice miniature seedling by Kevin and Mary Crowe. It’s Or1/08 x W12/08 6W-Y with a cup that’s about ¾ inch long.

20

Rod Barwick raises standards as well as miniatures. He won the Hubert Yeates Award with his seedling 10/93 (‘Radar’ x ‘Larna’) 1W-P. There were numerous entries in this class which calls for a vase of 7 daffodils, any division and size.

21

After the Hobart show, I spent a couple days in Sydney before the start of the National Daffodil Society tour in Auckland, New Zealand. There are a lot of sights for tourists in Sydney. The most iconic is the opera house.

To get a this photo of the

opera house, I walked half way

across the Sydney Harbor

Bridge.

22

I’ll skip the other tourist sites and just highlight a couple local phenomena. Right around Sydney is the notorious Sydney funnel-web spider, a venomous spider whose bite can cause death. No, I didn’t encounter any live ones. This pair (presumably dead) was in a display case at the Australian Museum.

23

Just northwest of Sydney is Wollemi National Park. Several years ago, a tree that was thought to be extinct was found there. It is popularly called the Wollemi pine. It is now being propagated and distributed so that people don’t have to trek through the park to search for it. This specimen is in the Royal Botanic Gardens in downtown Sydney.

24

But let’s get back to the daffodils. The NDS tour started in Auckland with a visit to an extinct volcano and a visit to the Auckland Botanic Garden before heading down to Hamilton for the North Island National Daffodil Show. I didn’t get to spend as much time at the show as I would have liked, but I did get some photos of the best. This is the Champion bloom of the show, ‘Jamore,’ exhibited by Denise and Neil McQuarrie.

25

This is the premier Division 7 bloom. It’s Wilf Hall’s seedling LQ-38 exhibited by Ron and Margaret Tyrrell. If you think this is good, wait until you see the premier Division 7 at the South Island National show.

This is ‘Renworth’ 5W-W hybridized by Tony

Robinson but registered and exhibited by Wilf Hall.

26

The North Island National show also included visits to some local growers. The first visit was to Graham Phillips’ field in Gordonton. That’s Graham on the left and visitor Jason Delaney on the right.

27

The next stop was at Graeme and Faith Miller’s place in Te Awamutu. The shade cloth covering the beds provides some protection from the weather. The shade probably encourages the stems to reach higher for light. That’s Graeme wearing blue and Trevor Rollinson in the red jacket.

28

The third stop was to visit Peter and Lesley Ramsay. Peter (in red jacket) is explaining something to Alistair Davey. Alistair is from the South Island, and we’ll later visit his field. Note the inverted pails to protect selected blooms from weather and sun.

29

The daffodil tour saw some sights other than daffodils. The day trip to Rotorua included Rainbow Springs which features New Zealand flora and fauna. This is a baby tuatara. Tuatara are not lizards. Baby ones are fairly lively while adults can sit motionless for hours. They can live for over a hundred years.

30

The other stop in Rotorua was the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute and Whakarewarewa Thermal Valley. The Institute teaches such skills as carving and weaving. Down in the valley is the Pohutu Geyser. You can see the hot, mineral laden water running down the rocks.

31

Photography is not allowed inside the Waitomo glowworm caves. It’s underground and dark or you would not be able to see the glow of the glowworms. You’ll have to be satisfied with a photo of the entrance. The glowworms survive by eating insects that fly into the caves and are attracted to the glow.

32

The new Te Rewa Rewa bridge near New Plymouth was not on our itinerary, but our bus driver wanted to see it, so we all decided to go along for the ride. It’s a pedestrian bridge and part of the coastal walkway. It reminds me of a whale skeleton.

33

Pukekura Park is a public park in New Plymouth. Admission is free, so it’s a popular place for people to walk the trails. New Plymouth is on the west coast of the North Island and was an overnight tour stop on the way south.

34

Departing from New Plymouth, we arrived in Normanby in time for lunch with the Taranaki Daffodil Circle. Lunch included this informal daffodil show that we “judged” before eating.

35

The “champion” bloom of the informal show was ‘Flying High.’

36

Some other flowers at the Normanby lunch were ‘Pinsey’ (left) an intermediate and ‘Kiwi Dream’ (below). Pinsey is a newly registered intermediate.

37

On the left is ‘Real Deal.’ As a seedling it was the champion bloom at the World Daffodil Convention in Melbourne in 2004.

On the right is ‘Royeleen’ 1Y-O. It won the premier for its classification

at the Australasian Daffodil Championships in Hamilton, New

Zealand in 2007. There were some pretty good flowers for a small,

informal daffodil show!

38

Normanby is where Spud Brogden lives, so naturally we visited his field after lunch. That’s Loyce McKenzie talking to Spud.

39

After leaving Spud’s field, we visited the private garden of Keith and Shirley Smith.

Their garden includes a small aviary.

40

Heading south to Ohau, we first visited the fields of John McLennan (left) and John Hollever (below) followed by lunch with the Central Daffodil Group.

41

At the Central Daffodil Group’s lunch, Margaret Seconi presents an award to John Hollever.

Bob MacDonell (standing) is talking to John McLennan

(sitting) at the lunch.

42

We had a free day to go wherever we wanted in Wellington. I went to Te Papa, the New Zealand national museum. Kiwi birds are nocturnal, and all the live ones we saw were in darkened displays where there was not enough light to photograph them. The museum of course had well lit models. The photo on the right shows a tank full of formaldehyde that preserves a colossal squid. I had seen the television documentary about the capture, freezing, thawing, and dissection of this squid so I wanted to see the actual specimen. It’s about six feet long. That’s a lot of calamari!

43

From Wellington we took a ferry to the South Island and continued by bus to Nelson. (Yes, the bus came with us on the ferry.) Near downtown is a divided road where the islands separating the two directions of traffic are landscaped with daffodils.

44

John Hunter and Denise McQuarrie live near Brightwater, so they show many of their daffodils at the Brightwater Horticultural Society’s spring show. This photo was taken before most of the exhibits were entered. The daffodil section is mostly off the right edge of this photo.

45

The grand champion at the Brightwater show was Denise McQuarrie’s seedling K23 2W-W.

46

Denise also had the reserve champion bloom. It was her seedling OC481 3Y-R.

47

John Hunter had the premier 2W-P bloom. It was his seedling 65/91A.

48

You can’t tell from the picture that this is an intermediate, but it was the premier intermediate ‘Little Warrior’ 1YYW-WWY hybridized and exhibited by Denise McQuarrie.

49

These two didn’t win premiers, but both are ‘Archie Boy.’ The color is more accurate in the photo on the right, but the flower on the left has better form. This cultivar was hybridized by Arch Crerar who showed it as a seedling under number at the Brightwater show in 2007.

50

Another bloom that didn’t win a premier was ‘Tripapon’ 2Y-R hybridized by Graham Phillips and exhibited at Brightwater by Carol and Kevin Kerr.

51

Of course we also visited some growers near Brightwater. I forgot to photograph John and Marie Hunter at their place, but I did get Lachlan Keown there. In case you were unaware, Lachlan contributed the genealogy feature to Daffseek after watching John and Marie constructing ancestry charts with pen and paper. He was a university student majoring in computer science when I first met him at the Blenheim show 16 years ago.

52

And of course we visited Denise and Neil McQuarrie. This is a field where some of the older, unselected seedlings have been put out to pasture.

53

Yes, bulbocodiums can have two florets. This was in a patch of them at the McQuarrie’s. If you look closely, you can see I’m holding one stem with a wilted upper floret and a still fresh lower floret.

54

This is Denise McQuarrie and our tour bus driver Martin Wallis.

55

Leaving the Nelson and Brightwater area, our tour headed southwest for a little sightseeing before visiting daffodil growers around Christchurch. We viewed the pancake rocks at Punakaiki on the west coast of the South Island. It’s still a bit of a mystery how they formed in such flat layers.

56

Our bus wouldn’t start after our night in Greymouth. The tour company has a maintenance contract with a company that fortunately has a shop in Greymouth. After they got the bus started, they drove it to their shop for a thorough checkout. After all, we don’t want the bus to break down in the middle of nowhere, and there’s lots of nowhere on the west coast.

57

The delay in leaving Greymouth cut short our time in Hokitika where there are a lot of greenstone and glass blowing factories. Greenstone is jade, and this is the workshop of a jewelry store where they create jewelry out of local jade. Some stores use imported jade, so if you want real New Zealand jade, you need to look carefully.

58

Here’s a photo through the windshield of our bus of a bridge on the highway between Greymouth and Hokitika. As you can see it’s only one lane so traffic has to take turns. Priority goes to cars traveling in the direction of the black arrow. We’re going in the direction of the red arrow, so we have to wait. To make matters more interesting, trains also use this bridge. See the railroad tracks? I imagine when a car and a train approach the bridge from opposite directions, the train has priority regardless of the arrows.

59

Speaking of trains, one of the great scenic train rides is the Tranz- Alpine tour across the Southern Alps between Christchurch and Greymouth. It travels from Christchurch to Greymouth in the morning and back to Christchurch in the afternoon. After leaving us at the Greymouth train station, our bus driver drove the bus with our luggage to Christchurch to meet us at the other station.

60

Here’s part of what you see from the Tranz-Alpine train going through the mountains.

61

Otahuna Lodge was the home of Sir Heaton Rhodes, one of the early daffodil enthusiasts in New Zealand. He donated the Rhodes cup for which exhibitors vie at the national shows. The interior shot shows carved kauri wood. Kauri trees are now protected (sort of like old growth redwood trees in California) so you can’t get such large quantities of it any more.

62

Sir Heaton Rhodes imported daffodils from England and planted them in the field in front of his house. He probably had gardeners to do the actual planting, but, anyway, they’re still growing there.

63

Stuart and June McLachlan purchased and replanted the David Bell collection even though there were no records or charts. Some of the cultivars have since been identified, so some of the rows in the field have runs of known cultivars while other rows have a mixture of unidentified daffodils. This unusual double is unidentified. Each of the six perianth segments has two lobes, like two symmetric mitten thumbs. I don’t know whether David Bell hybridized it, whether it’s a sport, whether it’s open pollenated, or whether the form is stable. Because the field is large and without markers in the row, it’s going to be hard to find this daffodil again.

64

Another grower near Christchurch is Malcolm Wheeler. His daffodils are all in the back yard of his home. He and Rozanne Burnby exhibit under the name Malroze Daffodils. In addition to standards, he also hybridizes miniatures and has miniatures with white perianths and orange cups.

65

David and Leitha Adams live near the Christchurch airport and have some extensive fields behind their home. The photo below shows about one quarter of the plantings.

That’s David Adams welcoming Ron Stutz and the rest of the tour group to his home above.

66

Michael and Marian Brown live north of Christchurch at Loburn. At left, Michael is welcoming Graeme and Anna Brumley and the rest of the tour group to his home.

The field is flat but at a lower level than the house and road. That plus the trees on one side probably provide some wind protection.

67

Also in Christchurch are David and Carolyn Campbell who conduct business as Silva Dell Daffodils.

The photo on the right shows about a quarter of their plantings. I think they grow mainly for cut flower sales, but they were serious enough about daffodils to go to the World Daffodil Tour in England in 2008.

68

The tour proceeded south to Geraldine, the location of Pleasant Valley Daffodils, formerly run by Colin Crotty and now operated by Gordon and Cindy Coombes. That’s Gordon in the photo. It started raining after we arrived, so I photographed the cultivars on display in the garage rather than go out to the fields (which I had already seen in 2007).

69

Speaking of rain, it should be obvious from this photo that it’s raining. This was a visit to Alistair Davey’s field in Temuka. He grows other flowers in addition to daffodils, and the red blooms you see on the left are tulips.

70

We continued down the east coast of the South Island with a stop in Oamaru to watch the blue penguins return from the ocean at night. It was too dark for photography there, but I’ll show you some blue penguins later. Farther down the coast we saw the Moeraki Boulders, naturally formed spherically shaped rocks.

71

We finally arrive in Dunedin, site of the World Daffodil Convention where we got to see a few sights in addition to the Convention. This is Olveston House, the turn-of-the-century home of one of the early, leading citizens of Dunedin. It’s not so much a museum as a snapshot of a bygone time with all the original furnishings.

72

There weren’t many daffodils at the Dunedin Botanic Garden; you see the bulk of them in this spot. I was pleased to see a genuine southern hemisphere sundial in the garden. Do you know how a southern hemisphere sundial differs from a northern hemisphere sundial?

73

The most photographed building in Dunedin is probably its railroad station. It’s mostly a museum now, but you can see how distinctive it is and why Dunedin is preserving it.

74

One of the convention dinners was held at Larnach Castle built in the 1870s. It had fallen into disrepair until purchased in 1967 by the Barker family. They restored it and created many different gardens around it. Of course dinner time is night time, so it was too dark for us to see any of the gardens.

75

The climax of the tour was the World Daffodil Convention in Dunedin. Several plant societies got together to rent a major fraction of the Edgar Sports Centre.

You see the convention’s daffodil show behind the camellia show. This is basically the South Island National show.

76

The presence of the World Daffodil Convention and South Island National show did not stop the Dunedin daffodil group from having its annual local show. You can see their show in the very back of this photo.

77

Here’s the grand champion bloom ‘Moon Shadow’ 3W-GYY exhibited by Denise and Neil McQuarrie. It was also the premier 3W-Y bloom, the best British bloom, and the Australasian Open Championship best bloom.

78

The reserve champion bloom was ‘Hunterston’ 3W-GYR exhibited by John Hunter.

79

The Innovator Award went to seedling JAH 15/01B exhibited by John Hunter.

80

Seedling 04.72(11.1) by Wayne Hughes was the premier intermediate, the premier seedling, and best intermediate seedling.

81

The premier Division 7 was seedling LQ23 exhibited by Ron and Margaret Tyrrell. LQ23 was hybridized by Wilf Hall.

82

There is an amateur section in addition to the open section, and the amateur premier Division 3 was seedling 01-38 exhibited by Andrew Jenkins.

83

The premier Division 9 was ‘Cronkite’ 9W-GYR exhibited by John Hunter.

84

The premier Division 4 with yellow perianth was ‘Ballistic’ 4Y-O exhibited by Bill Cowie.

85

The premier Division 1Y-P was ‘Taneka’ exhibited by Spud Brogden.

86

There were a lot more premiers in the various classifications, but I’ll skip their photos. Instead, here are a couple other attractive New Zealand cultivars that fell a little short of taking the premiers for their classifications. On the left is ‘Polar Flame’ 3W-YOO exhibited by Malroze. On the right is ‘Aisling’ 2W-WWR exhibited by Pleasant Valley Daffodils.

87

Remember the local Dunedin daffodil show? Here’s its champion bloom ‘Disc Eye’ 9W-GYR exhibited by Alan Brown.

88

One of the sites the convention visited was Trevor Rollinson’s home and daffodil patch. That’s Don Caton and Ian Tyler in the patch. On the right are Margaret Seconi and Rosemary Rollinson. Rosemary made all the goody bags for the convention.

89

At left are Les Cleveland and Brent Heath. Les Cleveland is a patron of the National Daffodil Society of New Zealand. His estate has far more daffodils than the photo below shows. Those are hundreds of ‘Erlicheer,’ and there are a lot more cultivars than this.

90

The tour didn’t end in Dunedin. Because there are more plane flights out of Christchurch, the tour brought us back to Christchurch to stay at a hotel adjacent to the airport. Christchurch was devastated by earthquakes in September 2011 and February 2012, and they’re still removing buildings that can’t be repaired.

91

I was amused by this car and dog wash in Christchurch. Do you just leave your windows down with your dog inside? The sign says “self service with a smile.” Is it you or your dog that smiles while you’re washing? I took this photo through the window of our bus as we drove by, so I didn’t have a chance to find out whether you wash your car and dog separately or together.

92

We had a brief stop at the Christchurch Botanic Garden. I didn’t get to see much, but here is a small part of the daffodil meadow.

93

The Canterbury Museum is adjacent to (or actually at) the Christchurch Botanic Garden. One of their new exhibits is the cross that was atop the spire of the cathedral. In one of the earthquakes, it fell 63 meters to the ground. The cathedral was deemed unsafe, so we couldn’t go near it.

94

Remember I said that we couldn’t photograph the blue penguins coming in from the ocean at night in Oamaru? The Antarctic Centre adjacent to the Christchurch airport has a collection for public viewing. These are all disabled penguins that cannot be returned to the wild. They will live out their lives there and will not be allowed to breed.

95

And that concludes my 2012 visit to Australia and New Zealand.

We invite you to join the American Daffodil Society

• Quarterly issues of beautifully illustrated publication, The Daffodil Journal• Regional newsletters with information and advice unique to your growing

area• Invitation to attend the Society’s annual national convention• Opportunity to become an accredited judge of daffodils• Most importantly, enjoy being with other daffodil enthusiasts!

96

Membership benefits:

Visit the American Daffodil Society Web Site daffodilusa.org

American Daffodil Society Webstore stores.daffodilusastore.org/StoreFront.bok

DaffSeek – Daffodil Photo Database daffseek.org

+

The American Daffodil Society, Inc.Visit the American Daffodil Society website to join today,

www.DaffodilUSA.org.

The ADS was founded in 1954 to promote a wider interest in daffodils. The society and its members have set

the standard for daffodil shows and judging and continues to encourage

scientific research on the genus Narcissus.

As a member, enjoy benefits such as quarterly issues of The Daffodil Journal,

an invitation to attend the Society’s annual national convention, and the

company of other daffodil enthusiasts!

Find us on: