March, 2006


Next Meeting:
  14 March @ 7:30 PM @ 9th & Lincoln.  Program: Lou Paradise illuminates the mysteries of the ADS Classification Book.  Bring your ADS classification book
to the meeting and be prepared to test your mettle.  Lou Lombardo hopes to have the first of his luscious cuttings for sale.  Diana will sell Bottle-of-ink pencils for $1 each.  Let the season begin!

GREENHOUSES GROWING EVERYWHERE:  Right before our eyes, Tinnee built a two-shelf greenhouse which would fit into any convenient corner of one’s living room, garage, or basement.  She uses a metal bookcase purchased from Home Depot or you can use plastic shelving, encloses it in a wrap of 2 mil. transparent plastic—drop cloth material-- leaving 2/3 of the front exposed.  She then drops a second piece of plastic over this opening which she can also use to let in fresh air.  Tinnee hangs 2 shop light fixtures from each shelf and leaves them on an 18 hour timer.  (Some people say that 16 hours is enough, but I use the 18-hour periodicity, too.) The entire four shelf greenhouse costs $120.  Tinnee encourages spritzing green sprouted tubers with a dilute mix of water and Miracle Grow. For a more detailed account click here.

 

Lou Lombardo dissolves two bags of Miracle-Gro (2.5 Lbs. total) in enough hot water to make one gallon of concentrate.  In this form, the concentrate can be diluted 1 tablespoon per gallon of water to give 176 ppm nitrogen, an optimal concentration for rooted cuttings.  Lou L. employs a similar type of bookshelf greenhouse, but he lines the outside of his shelves with aluminum foil to maximize the light.  In addition to using the dilute fertilizer, Lou sprays with Immunox (a fungicide available at OSH) to battle powdery mildew.  He also adds Imidacloprid (a systemic insecticide) to the soil of his stock plants; thus rendering his cuttings toxic to most sucking insects.  Imidacloprid is the active ingredient in Bayer Advanced Garden Tree & Shrub Insect Control (available at Home Depot and Lowes) and the correct dilution is 100:1 (about 1 oz per gallon of water).  Applying 2 oz of the dilute mix to a 4 inch potted dahlia will provide many months of protection.

ROLLING THE DAHLIA DICE:  Where do new varieties of dahlias come from?  From seeds.  Each seed codes a new combination of millions of genetic instructions resulting in a unique new flower.  Following the great bell curve, most of these new dahlias will be mediocre to wretched.  Only a wee tiny percent will be so magnificent that other people will want to grow them.  (Think of the percentage of Olympic athletes stemming from all the babies born in the world.)  Therein likes the challenge, the luck and the glory.  Tinnee labels all her seed heads with the plant mother’s name.  Those that she has hand-pollinated, she labels with the stamen name as well. Like a botanical Betty Crocker, Tinnee likes to “cook” her seeds for a day in her gas oven using just the pilot light as a heat source.  (This did result in an unfortunate seed-a-cide when her husband Craig preheated the oven for a special dinner.  Beware.)  To germinate the seeds, Tinnee places them on a wet paper towel and puts them in sealed Tupperware containers.  They should sprout between 4-14 days.  Remove each sprout and put it in its own 2x2” or 4x4” container and pop in a warm window or bookcase greenhouse.  DJ brought lots of extra seeds for members to take home and dabble in the adventure.

GENEROSITY OF FRIENDS:  Thanks to Roger Pupp who brought in several clumps of primo dahlia stock.  He hoped that members would take the clumps home, divide and label them, keep a couple for themselves and bring the rest to the tuber sale.  Thanks to the Dingwalls for sharing a huge box of Meyer lemons with citrus seekers.   Lou & Thelma brought in 2 lovely double white Tree dahlia blooms and a stalk with many potential sprigs which could easily be rooted.  Denis shared a wonderful cake for Valentines Day.  Joanne shared a scrumptious baked delight as well.  Diana distributed Valentine’s candy to all.  John alerted us that Martha Stewart Living March, page 158, features Connell’s dahlia business.  Jamie and Rosa shared a copy of Finelife, October 27, 2005, which features their Aztec Dahlias: great pictures and a lovely plug for DSC. 


If you have not paid your DSC Dues for 2006, please do it ASAP. We need your support!
Your annual dues participation is very important to us
 

TUBER SALE 2006:  April 1, Saturday in the Auditorium at 9th and Lincoln.  Please contribute your extra labeled tubers to our sale.  Sign ups for volunteers were taken at the February meeting and will be taken at the March meeting.  You MUST be on the sign- up list to get in at 7:00 am.  Everyone else—even DSC members—will have to wait until the doors open to the public at 9 am.  There are so many people who contribute all through the year at the dig out, the show, the meetings, the picnic, and at the Dell, that volunteering at the Tuber Sale and the subsequent early-bird shopping has become a reward for the faithful.

BOUQUETS OF BLOOMERATI: PSW CONFERENCE:  The Pacific Southwest (PSW) conference gathered over 80 people from the 7 dahlia societies in California.  At the conference hosted by the Monterey Dahlia Society, members gathered to discuss issues common to the seven societies and make decisions on a  variety of classification and name issues. The meeting was chaired and organized under the leadership of Kevin Larking MDS President. One of the highlights of the PSW conference was when Karen presented the Top 20 Varieties grown in the PSW for 2005.  Leading the group is Matthew Juul, Pam Howden, Kenora Jubilee and Glenbank Twinkle. 

Karen also presented the PSW 2005 Winning Varieties by Size; check this out if you are looking for strong contenders of a specific type.  Ruskin Marigold led the BB section with 30 wins; CG Sprit garnered 27 in the Miniball category.  Juul’s Buttercup nailed 22 in the single category.  PSW Conference Courts of Honor lists the 6 show winners by category.  John Morton handed out special awards to Kevin Larkin/Karen Zydner (Derrill Hart for CG Forte, B SC Y:  Evie Gullikson award for Beaucoup Amis, Co Y/y); and to Lou Paradise (Lynn B. Dudley medal for Pink Paradise M FD DP).  Even if you don’t plan to compete in the shows, you can use this list to determine what will probably be the most successful in your own garden. 
The silent auction caused a lot of bidding especially for Tinnee’s spectacular fossils exhibit and Ozzie’s rare green orchid.  Betty Crandle crafted Ozzie’s orchids into stunning corsages for all the ladies and arranged amazing protea centerpieces for each table.  Much clever horse trading erupted during the raffle wherein a scale-model Hummer passed through several owners.
The Conference program also included a visit to two commercial nurseries. B&H Flowers and Corralitos Gardens. Scott Kornberg, B&H Flowers Operations Manager, guided us through this humongous commercial nursery specializing in tulips, oriental lilies and Dutch Iris. What a combination of twenty-first century computerized technology and age-old painstaking hand labor.  When the Katyama Brothers’ rose business literally went south to Central and South America, B& H arrived in 2000.  To produce 10 million cut tulips a year, Scott buys the bulk of his bulbs from Holland for the January through July market, from Chile for November, and from France for the December market.   
Building on centuries of perfectionism, most of the equipment for tulips comes from the Netherlands, including one which tamps bulbs into crates of soil where they root in 3 weeks at 42-48 degrees.  To insure a constant supply of flowers, rooted bulbs then go into suspended animation in the freezer; from defrosting to shipping buds take only 21 days.  Since first grade tulips must be 14” or longer, B&H cores each tulip bulb by hand to glean the essential extra length and thus the extra premium price.  Depending on the destination, tulips are bunched 5, 8, 10, 12, 18 or 20’s and in single or multiple colors-a very labor-intensive stage. Cut tulips have to be stored upright to capitalize on their heliotaxic proclivity to lean towards the light. They are shipped in water containing a new hormone-based preservative which inhibits ethylene, the cause of plant senescence. 
Scott’s passion for the process came through as he expounded on the constant experiments with bulb types, fertilizers, humidity, conditions and machines all to maximize dollars per square meter of greenhouse space and reduce costs, costs, costs.  Presently in Holland half the tulips are grown hydroponically.  While this is easier on the machinery because it drips less sand and dirt to confound mechanisms, it entails learning about waterborne bacterial problems, different ways to sterilize the crates and even developing an ebb & flow system to replace standing unaerated water. 

We noted beds of chilies, peppers, tomatoes and gloriously aromatic cilantro hugging the outside of heated greenhouses: “kitchen” gardens for the employees.  Shivering, Lou Paradise observed, “I’m surprised they don’t grow iceberg lettuce.” Each greenhouse covers 186,000 square feet or four acres. To cater to the varying amounts of light each species requires, automatic sunscreens drape across the ceilings.  An elaborate steam system thermostatically regulates temperatures, 65 degrees for 13-16 weeks for their 8 million oriental lilies.  We watched 3 men, seated in a contraption which scoots up beds hand planting 35,000 lily bulbs a day.  Stored at 28 degrees for up to a year, lilies must be planted deeply because most of the roots grow above the bulb. (Conversely, iris are stored at 86 degrees before planting.) By raising a grid of 8x8” wire mesh, the top-heavy lilies can be supported as they grow to 4’ high before they are hand-scythed for packing. 

Each area of each greenhouse grows a little differently.  Scott explained how they ”steam clean” the soil by tenting it and exposing it to 160-170 degrees for 6 hours to kill pathogens.  Adding a little Yankee ingenuity to traditional Dutch procedures, Scott scored wooden apple boxes for a new crop of hyacinths, to ensure their longer stems.  Jamie thought these looked like a fabulous source of cheap raised beds.  After touring B & H’s 24-hour 7-days-a-week operation, we marveled that they could produce such incredible quality blooms at such reasonable prices. 

At Corralitos Gardens, Kevin toured us through the cutting greenhouse where pot roots are laid atop a core of Styrofoam run with thermostatically controlled heat cables, covered by 2” of sand, over which they spread a 7-month release Osmocote fertilizer, covered by 4” of potting soil. Karen roots all 350 varieties of cuttings in foam wedges which are more sterile than soil and seem to produce a higher yield of viable plants; the most popular types seem to be the most stubborn about making shoots.  Corralitos ships all their rooted cuttings in plastic clamshells so they are not crushed in the mailing process.  Kevin recommends flaring the roots outwards when planting to obviate twisted swirling tubers later in the season.  The biggest mistake growers make when planting cuttings is not watering them enough.  For the first two weeks before their roots have established themselves in the new soil, cuttings need watering every day. 


Check out an interesting section on our DSC web site, The Trivia Section
 

In their zeal to promote clean technique, Corralitos has never planted a tuber in their outside soil; they plant only their own cuttings.  All newly acquired tubers are kept in an isolation ward.  Corralitos began by selling cut flowers, then they sold wholesale; now they have evolved to dealing almost entirely retail.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR:

 


Society                 Tuber sale       Show                 Flower of Year  
San Leandro        NA                   Aug. 5-6              Pam Howden     
DSC                      April 1             Aug. 19-20          Bea Paradise
Monterey Bay       April 1             Labor Day          Just Married   
John E Stowell     April 1             Sept. 9-10           Marilyn M; Honka
ADS National                               Sept. 14-17 at Long Island, NY

Photo courtesy of Franck AvrilMARCH MADNESS:  Check your tubers.  If squishy, it’s fishy; when in doubt, throw it out.  Bring your tubers into a warm environment (at least 62 degrees) so they will start sprouting.  Sprouted tubers are the ultimate guarantee of viability at the Tuber Sale.  When your milkcartoned tubers begin sprouting, gently spritz them with whatever concoction you choose: water, fertilizer, systemic bugicide, and/or fungicide.  Weed,  Weed, Weed the area where you plant dahlias.  It’s so much easier to keep the area clean rather than attack all the leafy greens AND the creepy crawlies who’ve been hanging out in the opportunistic jungle.  Negotiate with other people to share/swap/trade/beg for the varieties you want.  Last chance to turn under chicken manure because it takes 6 weeks to “cool down” before you plant tender young dahlias. 

 

IN MEMORIAM:  Charlie Splinter, 1917-2006, served as president of the San Diego Dahlia Society.  For many of the 50+ years he dominated southern California competition.  He chaired the ADS Judging Accreditation Committee to encourage consistent standards across societies.  Charlie was beloved for culturing growers as well as growing.

 

Click to return to DSC Home PageDahlia Society of California, Inc., San Francisco, CA  -- Copyrighted
Chief Editor: Deborah Dietz
eNewsletter Editor: Ted Marr

Acknowledgement: Photos in this issue by DJ, Deborah, and Ted.