Dahlia Society of California - March, 2004

April 3rd, Saturday
will be our
2004 Annual Tuber sale. Volunteers are requested. Please see Elsie
to sign up.

Program: Lou will decode the ADS Classification Book.  What do those numbers represent?  Why define form?  What do the extra letters-D-H-in some of the columns mean? Maybe Juul/Paradise will surprise us with first crack at the new cuttings?  Elsie has ordered more marking pencils.  We’ll discuss how to prepare for the tuber sale & pass the sign-up gate list around.  If you cannot make the meeting but you helped in the Dell during the summer, at the Show in August, or during Dig Out 2004, call Deborah to get on the gate list. (Remember: arrive by 7 a.m. & stay until at least 10:30, preferably lunch!)  Hospitality for our March meeting?

______________________

GLORIOUS SNIP SLIPPERS! 

Click here to see
the amazing
 step-by-step process at the Golden Gate Park greenhouse.
 

Since December 17, Erik, Gerda & Lou P.  have been generating remarkable cuttings—almost 1500 at last count.  They place tuber clumps in Styrofoam grape boxes atop heating coils in Golden Gate Park’s greenhouse.  When a shoot has 2-3 pairs of leaves, they cut it “right up against the tuber.”   

Erik demonstrating how to cut a shoot

From Camano Pet, they have already harvested 59 cuttings  (many of which will go to the Palace of the Legion of Honor).Once rooted, (@ 10-14 days) the plants begin a journey to the unmisted greenhouse area.

Then outside in a very sheltered and warm area, then,  exposed to all the elements then on to the tuber sale and gardens everywhere.   At night, Gerda scribes hundreds of tiny labels as she watches old movies on TV.  

______________________

Mistress Grid  

Deborah explained the “Mistress Grid.”  Either on Excel or paper, list the 15 dahlia colors across the top and all the forms down the side, e.g. AA FD, AA ID, AA C, AA IC, thru S & MS.  I fill in the ones I know I have on hand in one color, the ones promised to me in a second color & the ones I’ve ordered from catalogs in a third color.  (This could be excessive.) 

Once plotted you can readily see where you have gaps: no FD? Only one miniature?  7 BB FD  bi’s!  The first time Tinnee tried it, she realized she had all yellow and orange dahlias.  Then you know what to hunt for in the catalogs or at the tuber sale.  Check your ADS Book or the PSW conference list for the winningest variety in the category you need. 

______________________

Wow!  DSC raised the bar (or blew off the roof ) for conferences in the future.  Elsie & Louise stuffed 70 hospitality bags which Jytte laboriously collected from 5 different stores.  Guests were greeted with a forest of colorful gifts & donned name badges with Golden Gate Park Dahlia Dell backgrounds designed by Gerda. 

Queens of PSW Marilyn Masurat and Joann Morton in front of the Corralitos display
 

Jeff Minor, Bob Papp & John Morton hand off conference tropies

With John Morton’s bouquet of amazing dahlias (this time of year?!), Corralitos Gardens exhibited photos & plants in front of the conference room.  Mark Oldenkamp & family drove down from Oregon to officiate. 

He praised the Gitts family of Swan Island Dahlias for donating space for a national trial garden in Canby and helping out with fertilizer & water. Mark encourages anyone traveling up to the National Show in Seattle to drop by; certified judges should please do some seedling judging while there.   Bob Miller announced that several ADS slide shows are now available on the ADS website. Bloomerati buzzed about the spectacular Juul/Paradise cutting enterprise. Charlie and Lavonne Splinter celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary.

Bob Papp triumphed with much ink at the silent tuber raffle

Gerda brought photos to illustrate their process.  Kevin reported that Dr. Hanu Pappu, Asst. Prof. at  Washington State U. is working on dahlia viruses. He proposed each Society chip in to have Dr. Pappu speak in Northern & Southern California.  Karen Zydner passed out the 2003 PSW show results.  The top 3 dahlias in California last season were: Hamari Accord, Glenbank Twinkle & Matthew Juul.

______________________

NOT SO SILENT AUCTION

All day, attendees continued to up the ante on coveted varieties.  So much fun & $$ exceeded Erik G’s expectations when he concocted this crazy scheme weeks ago.

______________________

DAHLIA MANIA IN THE BRITISH ISLES

Click on the Dahlia in this section to see a larger image from across the pond

Dave Spencer left no doubt that English dahliaphiles are fanatics.  In a 440’ x60’ back yard he grows 3000 dahlias of only 20-25 varieties.  Why so few types?  English shows demand up to 72 poms in one entry.  AA’s are shown minimum x5. 

Thus Dave will cull thru 100 blooms to match 5 perfectly. To get maximum conformity, the Brits stick to yellow or white most of the time; no one dares matching bi’s or varrigateds. 

Dave grows his cuttings from pot roots—not “chicken legs,”  their term for tubers—in his 2 25’ greenhouses on heated benches to produce 20-25 thousand cuttings.  He recommends mushroom compost as a texture builder for “lightening dreary ground.”

MARSTON LILAC (F MIN DEC)

He builds snazzy brick or temporary straw bale pit cold frames for hardening off his scions.  Early on he strews snail pellets under a thick mulch of barley or wheat straw mulch. One grower erects huge “polytunnels” 12’ high structures with clear vinyl from which huge fans keep the heavy air moving @ $6000 each. 

Instead of one stake per plant, Dave makes a corral of 3 per bush & wraps string around the outside to make a “friendly fence.”  To correct “clock facers” (translation: front facing), Dave chucks cotton pads under a developing bud to correct a bad attitude.  He plucks off the back bracts of every single pom to ensure maximum globularity.  To slow down development before a show, he tops potential winners with dunce hat cones. He attaches each stem to a bamboo rod for protection during competition transport; then he ties it into place—like seat belts in each bucket for each bloom.

CARMEN & DAVE, 'TERRY CLARKE TROPHY' WINNERS AT NATIONAL SHOW.

Young James Queant asked about junior exhibiting in England.  Dave explained that he began as a child showing wildflowers in a jam jar & matriculated to assembling “mini gardens” with moss for grass, a mirror for a pond & match sticks for fence posts.  There is not a specific category delimited by age; rather all comers begin as novices.

 At Sunday Breakfast, Dave dazzled us with pictures of the latest winners in Great Britain.  Because the Brits are “form mad” they grow mostly formal decorative or semi cactus.  Sir Alf Ramsey, AA FD Pk,  is a “Really Big Dahlia.”  Kenora Challenger, A SC  W, is “the best in the world.”  Trengrove Millenium, B FD Y,  & Eastwood Moonlight star in the Medium category.

JANAL AMY (AA SC)

 Ruskin Diane, BB FD Y, has dominated for 15 years; Willo Violet, P L, since 1937.  That’s longevity.  For the future, Dave touts Sorbet, B SC w/crimson (a radical departure from monotonous yellow or white); Kilmore from Scotland; Ryecroft Gem, MBA  PK “faultless; ” Ryecroft Moon, Ba Y; Mary’s Jomanda, BB FD PK; 7 Andreea Lawson BA W.  

Shows in England have adopted one new tradition from the colonies: the Court of Honor.  To whet the competition here in California, Dave dangled a lovely silver medal to be awarded at the PSW conference show this summer. 

______________________

GONZO RAFFLE

Bookkeeper Melissa keeps track of 155 lower table items

______________________

ELSIE MUELLER AWARDED OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT

Highlight during the weekend was when Elsie Mueller received a well-deserved Conference Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions to our Conferences over the years.

______________________

SPRING FORWARD
MARCH MINISTRATIONS

By the end of February, bring your stored tubers out of cool storage into warmer climes (ideally 62+ degrees) to get them to sprout in time for the Tuber Sale.  Erik G. likes to place damp towels over his tuber flats to encourage germination.  A friend stacks his around his water heater.  Tinnee uses the top of the elevator shaft.  Check for rot.  When your milk carton dahlias are 6-8” high, begin putting them outside during the day time.  Eventually you can leave them out overnight. 

Then they are “hardened off” & ready to plant.  You can make individual greenhouses by erecting a stick in the middle of your container & tenting the whole thing with a clear plastic bag.  If you left dahlias in the ground, put 1-5 gallon pots over the top to protect from too much moisture and to warm up the soil a bit.  Negotiate for tubers with other DSC members who grew dahlias you’d like to try this year.  Hang up a few announcements about our Tuber Sale at your local library, Laundromat, gym ??

Don't forget to renew
your DSC and ADS membership

______________________

IMPASSIONED PLEA

If you sight dahlias in magazines, newspapers, on TV, milk cartons, cereal boxes, the net or other interesting places, please contact webmeister Ted at ted@sfdahlia.org.  Dahlias in the News should prove an interesting tab on our website www.sfdahlias.org. 

_______________________

SF FLOWER & Garden SHOW

March 17-21 Cow Palace; tickets run from $13 to $20.  Dan’s Dahlias will be selling tubers & Carol Hemingway will be selling dahlia photographs.  www.gardenshow.com