Its that time of the year, when the weather is cold and miserable outside that I head into the greenhouse and start the task of repotting and dividing up my plants, this is not easy feat as I now have over 200 different varieties of Pleione and I need to repot them all, having taken them out of pots, trimmed them and inspected them for health issues.

I personally take this opportunity to separate flowering sized (FS) bulbs from those not quite there yet and pot them up and grow on separately - this means that you have a pan full of only FS bulbs which give a stunning display in Spring whilst those needing a bit more time can be brought on elsewhere in the greenhouse.

I am often asked what my compost recipe is and I generally work to a mix of 5 parts sieved pine bark (Melcourt Potting bark with the fines riddled out), 1 part super course Perlite (2mm - 7mm) and 1 part chopped sphagnum moss, all mixed up with a couple of teaspoons of ground dolomite lime in the mix. the lime provides much needed Calcium and Magnesium and have found this to be a great benefit.

Once the plants are trimmed and sprayed with fungicide and allowed to dry I get on with the potting (Radio on, or Audiobooks) and then as it is winter and space is a premium I place all the pots and pans into those very useful orange bread trays you can get, and stack them on the bench in the greenhouse to save some space. The plants will be very happy like this until buds start to appear in the Spring. Some of the Autumn flowering plants like it a bit warmer and they are tucked up in a propagator with the thermostat set at 10 degrees Celsius.

I personally pot up most plants in half-pans, but where I have a large display I like to use large bulb bowls with holes drilled in the bottom for drainage.

Happy Growing!