April 2026 Newsletter

See the full original newsletter pdf with photos here: April 2026 Newsletter

NEXT MEETING:

April 14 at 7:30 PM at 9th and Lincoln, parking at 10th and Lincoln. Some people may contribute tubers and dahlia plants. Remember, all items brought into our meeting room are FOR SALE; all trades and donations should be transacted in our parking lot. Who will bring treats for hungry dahlianeers?

SEND IN THE CLONES

Wow! Rennie and Connor of Polymorphbio.com in Santa Cruz let us peek into the future of high tech dahlia propagation! While their company specializes in agrobiz like berries and hemp, they, too, have succumbed to dahlia seduction. Instead of waiting all season for 4-6 potential tubers which might have some sort of disease, they wondered why not use their lab’s “efficient space utilization” and pathogen remediation? Complete with autoclaves and laminar flow hoods, they maintain an extremely clean environment. “More sterile than an operating room!” declared Dr. Erik. Starting with very tiny pieces of dahlia meristem, they grow perfect clones in small flasks of their proprietary agar under 20 hours of light a day. Although the flasks need very little day-today manipulation, they do take 6-9 months to mature to the point where they can be transplanted into 4x4’s and dirt. Polymorph brought a dozen of these young beauties which they raffled off to much delight. Erik pondered how Polymorph’s technology might save and re-popularize some of the glorious dahlias of old which make few or no tubers, like Porcelain? Imagine 100 Porcelains for sale? A hundred Rolfs? A bunch of Belle of the Balls or Augie Whites? What a potential game changer! Zoom watcher Steve, wrote in, "To get a glimpse into the world of this intense form of vegetative propagation was fascinating. I loved that they knew dahlias 'don't like wet feet'!"

LOCAL CUTTINGS

Tim brought beautiful cuttings from his Sisterhood Gardens greenhouse to further explain propagation and planting techniques but the hubbub over Polymorph’s clones took all our time. Deborah brought in the first tubers of Jennifer’s Park Princess and some cuttings including Pennhill Watermelon, and Clearview Cameron.

SWEETS FOR SWEETIES

What a huge basket of oranges, lemons, parsley and dill Cara bestowed upon us! Jenna and Len both donated sugar cookies. Lisa has girl scouts in her life replete with Lemonade Girl Scout Cookies. And blessed be our bakers! Anita whipped up delicious butterscotch blondies, Allison and Alex poured Lemon Zest bars and in honor of St. Paddy, Brigid whisked up Irish soda bread for us. Patricia, did you bring those jaunty shamrock mint chocolates? Thank you AGAIN to all of you! Sustaining our zeal with yummies certainly supports our DSC in a major way!

PACIFIC SOUTHWEST DAHLIA CONFERENCE

Imagine a conference so enticing that they had to stop selling tickets because the room would overflow! Never in the history of California dahliadom had this happened before! Over 160 people avidly attended Monterey Bay’s 2026 Pacific Southwest Dahlia Conference. As attendees walked into the huge Portuguese Hall they saw swag buckets on every chair. The entire right side filled with raffle items, hundreds of tubers, cuttings, aprons, wine! books and more. The entire left side held attractive gift baskets for silent auction. Stepping into the future, their raffle action was entirely computerized! Numbers assigned, numbers randomized, names flashed up on the big screen: over 6000 tickets handled sooo efficiently!

GOPHER GAL

Bethany Knight taught us how to identify which varmint was laying siege to our precious dahlias. Voles leave an open hole and above ground runs. Ground squirrels live in colonies with big open holes and looooots of dirt! Worm-eating moles can burrow 100 miles a day!! EEE gads. Alas, gophers eat everything! Interesting fact: moles and gophers do NOT like coffee grounds. Judicious flinging around of coffee dregs which seep into the ground dissuade these hoodlums! The Starbucks scourge, indeed.

DATA OVERLOAD

Emily Fontes of Idlewild Blooms stunned us with her astonishingly meticulous information systems. Whether one is a tech whiz or a tech dinosaur, decide what is important. That is what one needs to keep accurate numbers on. If selling tubers, then knowing which cultivars yield the most roots per season is important. If hybridizing, then knowing which seed parents yield seeds with the trait you’re breeding for is important. At the Dell, height is important to plant short ones near the fence and progressively taller ones towards the center. Accurate numbers will illuminate the future trajectory of effort.

DIFFUSED LIGHT

Brion Sprinsock, who produced the stunning pictures in Kristine Albrecht’s two books, helped us take better cell phone pix. Try to shoot in defused light. Avoid portrait mode and use zoom to blur messy backgrounds. To capture red, burgundy or purple, add white to the bottom third of your frame; it can always be cropped out later. Brion presented the science behind every one his tips and then gave evidence via good/bad photos to back up his points. Brion’s clear explanations made us all feel empowered, smarter and challenged to take better snapshots.

HYBRIDIZER EXTRODINAIRE

Rich Gibson, the magician behind 20th Avenue Introductions, zoomed in from Washington DC. He uses several methods to up the yield of NEW varieties. He isolates ball forms in one geographical area, waterlilies in a different area. He ties cut pollen parents to stakes near the dahlia he wises the bees to pollinate. 20th Century Ave Memory et. al. are shown successfully all over California.

NEW JUDGES

Curtis announced many new judges. Alas, DSC contributes only 6 official judges having lost 2 this past year. We NEED you to step up. Take the 16 FREE Judging Courses on line at the ADS.org Attend the judging class this coming July and take the test to become a candidate judge. We can only hold shows if we have trained eyes to evaluate the progress of the dahlia species! Everyone benefits from learning more about dahlia evolution. PLEASE!

NEW DAHLIA SOCIETY

From Reno, Sierra Nevada people attended PSW to learn more about what it takes to become a dahlia society. Welcome!

SLICED AND DICED

Despite moving to Idaho, Louise Hendricks still completes the results of all the official ADS shows in California and issues 4 revelatory lists: PSW Top 20, PSW Winners by Size, PSW Courts of Honor and Updated Hall of Fame and Hall off Fame Candidates. Click here to view: https:// www.dahliadell.org/2025-show-results

PSW 2028

DSC hosts the 2028 PSW Conference and we are already planning. Who knows of a venue in San Francisco capable of holding 100-200 people with parking? We would so love anyone with corporate affiliations who might donate a meeting room for our community-oriented Saturday convocation. Genentech?? Sales Force? Google? Talk to your connected friends. PLEASE!

STRIKING DAHLIAS FROM 2025

Hapet Ruth, Glenmark Devive, Hilltop Mimi, Irish Lil Red pom, KA’s Champagne KA’s Creme Brulee, Kenora Wow

TUBER SALE VOLUNTEERS

We know many of you are eager to support the SF Dahlia Society and are wondering how to get involved throughout the year. We’re excited to share that Marissa Viray will be serving as our Volunteer Manager and point person for connecting you with these opportunities.

With our Tuber Sale right around the corner, this is a wonderful way to jump in and get involved. If you’re interested, please fill out the Google Form to let us know. Responses will remain confidential and those selected will be contacted with more information using their preferred method.

We truly appreciate your support and look forward to working together to make this event a huge success!

List of all 20 Volunteer Roles and who is already committed. https://docs.google.com/document/d/ 1shzB_kpV4EPvXeZyVSIeQ0rqN9hzhT6uVjmsPZW2U9A/edit? usp=sharing  

DAHLIA CALENDER

S. Coast DS Tuber Sale April 12 United Meth. Church 1-4 PM 1515 Frederick St. SLO

M Bay DS Tuber Sale April 18 Portuguese Hall Santa Cruz 9-11

DSC TUBER SALE April 25 9th and Lincoln GG Park SF Flower of the Year Skip to My Lou $100!

San Leandro Tuber Sale April 25

Sierra Nevada Tuber S. May 18 Reno 6 PM

Judging Seminar July 25 East Bay TBA

Central Coast Show Aug. 8-9 United Methodist Church 1515 Frederick St. SLO Flowers of the Year Misfit Kaleidoscope Reann’s Tiger’s Eye

DSC Floribunda! Aug. 15-16 9th and Lincoln GG Park SF

M Bay DS Show Aug. 22-23 Capitola Mall

SLDC Show Sept 5-6 JJ’s Eliot Venus BB Novelty Or Open

DSC Anniversary Picnic Sept. 13 Dahlia Dell

Sierra Nevada Show Sept. 19 703-228-9860

National Show Aug. 27-30 Grand Rapids, Michigan

OFFICIAL DAHLIA TUBER SALE POSTERS

Please flood your social media channels with these posters so no one misses out on this wonderful opportunity to enjoy gorgeous dahlias all summer and fall. Print them up and distribute to your dentist and doctor offices, Dahlia Society of California Tuber & Plant Sale Saturday, April 25, 2026 10 AM until sold out dahliadell.org County Fair Building Auditorium (9th Ave. & Lincoln) San Francisco Flower of the Year Skip To My Lou @sfdahliasociety favorite coffee shops and restaurants, club headquarters and biz.

DAHLIA TALK

Don't miss the online Dahlia Talk hosted by Dan Baulig. Open Discussion - Any topic is welcome.

• Zoom on the 4th Tuesday of each month from 7:00-9:00 PST.

• To get the link, contact: info@portlanddahlia.com

• This is a fun free-ranging conversation that includes people from all over the world! Last month Sir Keith Hammet from New Zealand discussed Agents Against Mildew.

FLORAL COUTOURIER

Bouquets to the Arts challenges designers to interpret their impressions of specific works of art into floral form. Arrangers plan all year for this fabulous event. Our Ken was given photos of a few objects de arts to choose from. From these inspiration points, she produced sketches. Not one of her designs was chosen, but TWO! Capturing the swirls and intricacies of a Mexican censor, she fabricated a metal scaffold to be worn upon shoulders and sewed a bright red dress which she wore in the opening night fashion show. Both conception and execution were magnificent! Major congratulations, Ken! Deborah and Mina coursed the entire De Young and admired everything. After a dirty day at the Dell, Antoinette shared admiration of the installations with Carol, both still in overalls but no less enthusiastic.

DAHLIA COFFEE TABLE BOOK

This spring, fellow member Cristina Carrizosa is launching DAHLIA, a fine art photo book created from months of photographing and volunteering in the Dahlia Dell at Golden Gate Park. Produced for the centennial year of the dahlia as San Francisco’s official flower, the book is both a celebration of the blooms and a tribute to the dedicated community whose care sustains the garden year after year. Some of the images may feel familiar, offering a new way of seeing a place many of you have helped shape. Kickstarter designated Cristina’s campaign “favored” status to support the printing of a limited first edition. You can learn more and order your copy of the book by visiting the campaign online at this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cristinacarrizosa/dahlia-bycristina-carrizosa

ADS PHOTO CONTEST RESULTS

Congratulations to Quamrun for winning one of the Arrangement prizes in the annual ADS Photo Contest. There are 9 categories plus People’s Choice. Check out the other winners here https:// youtu.be/ai76yZd8Dp0 then consider entering the 2026 competition.

PROJECT: BIG DRIP

In the course of a rigorous year, the watering system at the Dell withstood a lot of action. Lucy and Ken crawled down each line determining which missing parts needed replacing. Sarah oversaw the working function of every component: plugging inadvertent holes, switching out clogged feeder tubes and replacing drippers. Nicole helped everyone. In lieu of an eight year old girl scout reading Nancy Drew, Deborah manned the irrigation quill. On? On! Off? Off! So many dahlias already sprouted. Time to field dress most of them. Come check out the procedures on a Tuesday or Saturday morning.

EDNA MAGUIRE UPDATE

During the month of March 5th graders at Edna Maguire got to learn about dahlia propagation by taking cuttings. So far our cutting beds which were started in late December have resulted in over 100 cuttings that we will be able to sell at our annual plant sale fundraiser. And can you believe we have our 1st dahlia bloom in March!! Of course it's Elvira! Kids are excited to grow their own flowers and some have expressed interest in creating their own hybrids. Who knows what budding botanist may have found their calling?

OVER HILL AND DELL

On the hottest day in March, Carol, Antoinette and Deborah relaxed in the shade and processed Jennifer’s tubers. Carol went through the vermiculite and labeled the ones with no sprouts yet and gave the sprouted ones over to Deborah who potted each up in a 4x4” or gallon pot. Antoinette with her perfect penmanship wrote out venetian blind labels for each. Hand watering the pots has begun. Lou has cleared the Volcano; planting commences soon. Steve heroically dug another new traveling compost hole. Sarah has a couple plants hale and hearty on the hill. Weeded and cages sunk, Sue’s half-hill section awaits planting. Tim’s cuttings are up and trying to survive the heat wave. Look at the teardrop photo. What’s missing?? The huge cusonia tree that the birds so thoughtfully planted has been chopped down.

COLLAGE OF GORGEOUS 2025 DAHLIAS

Kaylee Jade, Otto’s Hippy Chic, Quiet Splendor

APRIL AT LAST!

Planting Plants

In April we plant!! I only plant plants; I do not put tubers directly into the ground because I cannot control the weather nor the critters. I have been jump-starting tubers in my loft since January and cuttings in my little greenhouse since December. I slowly introduced them to the outside circumstances to the point where they bask in the daytime sun and hunker through the cool evenings uneventfully. They are ready (eager?) to go into a permanent location. Gather the constituents: shovel, secret sauce, stake, and label. Dig a hole. How deep? Depends on the size of your dahlia specimen. Something in a 4x4” will be planted in a shallower hole than a cultivar in a gallon pot. After you’ve dug your hole but before interring your dahlia, pound in your stake. You do NOT want to inadvertently impale your precious starter baby. My rule of thumb is to plant at least one to two visible notches below the surface because this is where next year’s tubers will form.

Secret Sauce

Everyone has special goodies they tuck in with their new dahlias. Remember dahlias are like teenage football players: voracious. So you want a good fertilizer. I prefer a balanced fertilizer where all 3 of the numbers are the same: 3-3-3 or 8-8-8 etc. Next, you might want some calcium nitrate, dahlia viagra, for strong stems. Some people swear by bone meal for their calcium source, but I’ve been told that very little calcium or even bone ends up in these products. Trace minerals, in a product like Azimuth, might help endow brighter colors. You can’t go wrong with some luscious worm castings. My dad used to raid our Doggie Doolie for a dollop of disgusting goop for each mound. Ug. But his dahlias grew splendidly. Llama or bunny beans, Zoo Doo, or well-aged compost tickle your dahlia’s fancy. Avoid chicken manure or pigeon poop at the time of planting because the urea is sooo strong it could burn nascent roots. My short cut is Dr. Earth Flower Girl fertilizer because it combines all these goodies as well as adding mycorrhizae, the fungal hyphae that work underground to gather nutrients. Once planted, affix your label IMMEDIATELY! You might cut the bottom and top off a big soda bottle to act as a protective sleeve around the young plant. I cut the bottoms off 2 gallon pots for this purpose. Water. After the water has sunk in a while, protect with Sluggo Plus to ward off snails, slugs and dreaded earwigs!

Drip Systems

Last chance to check your drip systems or lay out drip tape before your burgeoning dahlias get in the way. Jenn T already reports first bloom! Wow! Let us know who’s shining in your garden firmament.

Yours in dirt,
Deborah

Photo Credits: Bjorndahl, Boley, Capps, Carrizoza, Chilton, Chou, Dietz, Gaensler, Harms, Kaiser, Krivoruchko, Lamb, Roehle, Tiff, Veis

URL Mavin: Mini

Allison waking up her tubers