Wanganui Horticultural Society spring show marks 150th year

Wayne Hughes, Wanganui Horticultural Society vice-president, grows, breeds and shows daffodils.

In 1868 the Wanganui Horticultural Society was formed, which makes this year, its sesquicentennial.

The society's spring show this month celebrates 150 years of growth, in the garden, hothouse or as a functioning organisation.

Wayne Hughes is the society's vice-president. While gladioli are his leading speciality, for the past 30 years he has been breeding and growing daffodils.

He joined the Wanganui Horticultural Society in the 1970s, but there are members still active today who started 30 years before that.

Some of them work with floral art and will be putting on a display of floral art over the last 150 years. It's the only section not judged by official society judges — it will be left to a public vote.

Wayne starting showing flowers when he was 10 years old — 50 years ago.
So what's the attraction in breeding and showing flowers?

"To better what's there, to advance the flower ... for perfection," he says.

His daffodils, while retaining the basic shape of the well-known spring flower, are not all the usual yellow. There are degrees of brightness and hues closer to cream, or even white, with the perianth segments (petals) and corona, or trumpet, being of different colours or varying shades of the same colour. Yellow and pink, white and pink, different yellows; creating those colours and hues is all down to breeding.

"I've got no beers in the fridge now," says Wayne, opening a backyard chiller filled with blooms, new and traditional calibrates, and among them are tazettas, stems with multiple small flowers to a single stem. There are lots of judging divisions — daffodil classifications — with each description quite precise.

"They're all different, but they're all daffodils."

In the field Wayne has many types of daffodil, some covered with "hats" to protect them from deterioration from rain and sun.

Last year, his Sandmere Gold was awarded a First Class Certificate.

"You have to have 12 flowers, all of showable value ... a First Class Certificate is not awarded lightly. It took a lot of breeding and a lot of effort, but it was worth it.

Wayne's pride and joy is Crystal Gem, a large white cup daffodil with white petals, bred in 2010, which is another recognised winner — Champion Bloom in both the North and South Island shows.

Wanganui Horticultural Society Spring Show is on at Whanganui Intermediate School, Dublin St, on Saturday, September 22, midday to 4.30pm.

Classes are Daffodils (including Historic), Amateur, Beginners, Children, Garden Flowers, Potted, Flowering Shrubs, House Plants, Garden Produce.