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Scabiosa - How to Cut - Help please
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Posted by BFFF_TX z8b TX (My Page) on Tue, May 17, 05 at 9:35
Hey guys, can anyone tell me how Scabiosa A. is supposed to be cut?, the stems have a center flower and then another stem on either side with a flower too, kind of like a candlarbra (sp?) Lynn B. advises to cut the stem and pull it under the support netting to avoid breaking the side shoots. Is the stem sold with multiple flower heads on it?
Also in some book I read recently, it said to "split the stem/s" - can anyone tell me what this means please.
Any advise greatly appreciated, thank you.
Cheers - Kim - BFFF Texas |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Scabiosa - How to Cut - Help please
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| Kim - the key to annual scabiosa is to cut it before its too far open. You may or may not be able to use the side shoots, depends on your use! If you want really long stems for florists, then the side shoots usually are sacrificed. However, the short middle stems work great for vases! Same with Knautia and perennial scabiosa (the smaller head variety). Last year I used two layers of netting and that worked the best so far. It is a pain to harvest...but the flowers to last and add a nice filler effect! A large number of my annual variety actually wintered over this year and they're about 9" tall now! And, they do reseed sometimes, or you can save the seed pod heads of the flowers you missed harvesting! These look somewhat interesting in fall arrangements as well. Enjoy!
Wendy |
RE: Scabiosa - How to Cut - Help please
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Thanks for the response and your help Wendy. I spoke with some florist customers yesterday and they said they get 'em both ways, single stem without side flowers and main stem with sideflowers. I may cut a bit of both and see how they are received by my customers.
Cheers Kim BFFF |
RE: Scabiosa - How to Cut - Help please
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How large an area do some of you growers have planted in Scabiosa? I have seen some at the wholesale floral supply. It was sad looking.
I am assuming it doesn't hold up well from picking to distribution. Erin |
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