My Top Many Flowers 

One of my favourite things is readers sending answers to things I ask or talk about in my newsletters. Then, one of my least favourite things is my own problem of not having (or taking enough) time to really send thoughtful responses back. Which feels extra stupid, because I want to encourage people to interact with the newsletter. I read all those replies with such happiness, only to then go on to my daily chores and get too distracted by Dahlia pictures, texts, Lily plant instructions, the Amaryllis supply, or whatever else also needs to happen. My mind has a load of tasks just waiting to be done, and usually they are impatient about it, too. Other things I do find a lot of fun. Those come around often as well, so I really should not complain at all. The good parts tend to win out, but still, sometimes you just want to complain about the chores of work.

One time, my daughter Pien and I made the decision to wait for our hobby. This was one of the best decisions I have ever made. It happened because she has spent a lot of life around–or in–hospital, and anyone who has ever been to hospital knows that waiting is the main thing to do over there. Doctors, Nurses, and other caregivers are always tending to someone who is in a worse predicament than you, so there is nothing to be done about it except make it your hobby. Then you’re always doing something you like. Whenever a secretary or other assistant comes over to tell you that they’re very sorry, it’s going to be at least another twenty minutes, you can inform them that they’ve just made your day, because you love waiting. Brings a smile to their face too.  Dahlia Seniors Hope

My new year's resolution is therefore to see the work chores in a similar way. I just want to decide that I like them now. It’s worked before, this mindset, and if it doesn’t, I can always imagine that they like waiting around, too. Then we’re all happy. But I’ve gone on about something entirely different now, when I just wanted to let you know I’m sorry for not replying to your reactions to our blogs. Lilium Sweet Susan

The ladies at the office, and like I said, I myself, love the fact that you take the time to reply to things you read in our newsletter. I really hope you know that, even when you don’t always get a personal reply. I really try my best to do that, but life gets busy. A while ago, I asked people to send in names for a cute, feisty  little Daffodil that was still nameless–or so I thought. I got a lot of great reactions, but it turned out there was a name: Verdant Sparks. A good option, too, by the way: Verdant means something like a green oasis, and an oasis of sparks does seem appropriate for this particular flower. In 2026 I hope to be able to offer her in the web shop, I want to give her another year to prove that she’ll do well in your garden.  Dahlia Bluetiful 

We’re talking about anything but the title now. When I wrote “My Top Many Flowers” I wanted to say something about those end-of-year rankings you see everywhere and how there is no way I could ever commit to a specific number of flowers to talk about. There are just too many of them that I like, whether for the flower itself or because they have a particular memory attached to me seeing them for the first time, and how could I rank memories? But I do know that most people do in fact have favourite flowers. So, I almost don’t dare ask it of you, but I will… would you send an email to info@fluwel.nl and tell us about your Top 3 of flowers? It doesn’t matter what kind, you could just say Daffodil or a specific type of Daffodil, I want everyone’s opinion, whether you know a lot of varieties or none at all. 

 I would like to, at some point, be able to give you a Top List of our own customers. I am very curious to know how a list like that would turn out. And doing it by asking people about it would be nice, because if I would look at what flowers sell the most, I don’t think I would get the same answer: sometimes you just buy a good, reliable bulb in a large number and only a few of something you really love. It would be more accurate to hear about it from you in an email. I’ll ask Vlad if we could add something to the web site to find this out. 

Number 783 in the music Top 4000 is Vincent by Don McLean. “Starry night, flaming flowers that brightly breeze,” and “Shadows on the hills, sketch the trees and Daffodils,” a song about Vincent in which Daffodils do their part in making a painting beautiful. As you know, any list of favourites that I could make would have a Daffodil at number 1.  Narcissus Starry Night 

One of our Daffodil seedlings comes from American hybridizer Bill Welch. When I asked my daughter Roos if she knew a fitting name for this Daffodil, she came up with this, and I thought it was perfect. This one will be in the Fluwel Special Narcissus shop this year. Something else to tell you about… I’ve been typing but I haven’t gotten to 1000 words yet. I’ve made soup today. Pien gave me a book once, a cookbook called Grandma’s Soup. I thought I would just open it and make the soup that I got on the page it opened at. Page 63: Brussel Sprout Soup. Brussel Sprouts are fine with me, but to make a soup out of them… but I gave it a shot anyway, I had this idea and I could not back out now, even though I had told literally no one about this plan. But I gave it some extra spices, mustard, a bit of heavy cream, more garlic, and I mixed it up, and what do you think? It tasted like Brussel Sprouts.  Right! I wanted to show you this Amaryllis from my greenhouse. This is a Ferrari that I planted about four weeks ago as a seemingly healthy bulb. When I planted it, there was nothing special to see. But when it started to grow, I was horrified. I really hope this is an anomaly, and I was the one that got it, luckily, but if you see your own Amaryllis look like this, do not start doubting yourself. Send us a photo and we will look and send you a new bulb, as this should not happen! I know from experience that when people get a bad flower, they always think to themselves that it must have been them, and they get discouraged to try flower bulbs. That saddens me: It happens to anyone, flower bulbs are a live product and sometimes they get ill. It is not you, it’s just bad luck. Please let us know so you can try again! And for us it is important to know which varieties gave people trouble too. Growers don’t always know if a bulb has something, as you see in my example: it looked totally fine. So always let us know! And, to put this into perspective: From my 500 Amaryllises, this is the only one that did this. I wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of our Fluwel Team. 

Kind regards,

Carlos van der Veek