May 2026 Newsletter
by Deborah Dietz
See the full original newsletter pdf with photos here: May 2026 Newsletter
NEXT MEETING:
MAY 12 at 7:30 at 9th and Lincoln.
Program: Erik will reprise his wonderful How to Grow Dahlias talk mixed with funny anecdotes and words of wisdom. Invite your friends, neighbors and co- workers. This will be fun on zoom and even better in person. Late cuttings from the Greenhouse Crew might be on sale along with plants from the Dell. Do you have extras to share with your Dahlia Society of California? We hope to have a lot of new people attend their first DSC meeting. If you notice a stranger, please introduce yourself and tell them why you enjoy our society. Make them glad they came. Who will bring yummygoodies to share with your fellow gardeners?
WHETTING OUR APPETITES
Augmented with Jenn’s new microphone, Erik’s inciting enthusiasm about our upcoming Tuber Sale carried loudly and clearly. Speaking for the Cutting Crew, Brigid reported over 1500 cuttings from over 100 varieties. Some grew so well so fast, over 100 had to be transplanted into gallon pots! What a year! Deborah solicited “Secret Sauce” ingredients. Tim uses Max Sea fertilizer; Amanda said Dr. Earth Flower Girl can be found at Costco! Others recommended fresh compost and micorhyzzae. Turns out Supper Sluggo is a great deterrent of slugs, snails and earwigs but a yummy attractant of rats! EEE gads. Marissa, our volunteer wrangler,explained Saturday morning plans. Jenna explained the truck and SUV brigade on Friday morning as well as showing off our new 100 Years Official SF Flower T-shirts that will be available with other swag at our Tuber Sale. She handed out Centennial postcards to all attendees.
GENEROSITY OF FELLOW GARDENERS
What an opportunity to buy glorious tubers and plants! Deborah ferried several plants from the Dell including Pennhill Watermelon, Trooper Dan and Clearview Magic. Cristiana donated bags full of Daddy’s Girl, Hollyhill Daydream, Pink Pearl and more including lovely photos of each! Cara donated free Venetian blinds for labeling. Steve brought two bags of sprouted Envy andPark Princess; he’d accepted the challenge of labeling 6 bags of Jennifer’s tubers. Whew! Jenna brought in 50 bags of Aileen’s premium tubers with names new to most of us. What a feeding frenzy! Then Kauna brought in 2 flats of anemones and cosmos to give away! Wow! What a capper to a great evening!
FEEDING FRIENDLY DAHLINEERS
Alex and Allison must have been on the same frequency with Ken and Kathy, both couples baking peanut butter cookies! Steve kept us healthy with Pantequillas (looked like carrots to me). Thanks to Brigid for her Belgium cookies and to Pat for both cookies AND lemonade. Yay, Katy! MMM bon bons! Ah, but soo sumptuous Lisa’s Lemon ricotta cheesy things and Anita’s exquisite peach crumb bars.Napoleon said an army marches on its stomach; certainly planting drives the appetites of us DSC dahlianistas.
BLUE RIBBON BRUNCH BUNCH
Erik invited a great DigOut crew to Show ’n Teach dahlia culture up in Sn Anselmo. When asked why Gary and Rosemary’s house looked vaguely familiar, “Oh, George Lucas filmed our house to be Indiana Jones’ home in his movies.” So Cool. Over excellent potluck lunch, dahlia lore and apocrypha mixed with Jenn’s shaved Brussel sprout salad and fruits galore. Master Gardener, Allison offered up a tricky clump to Deborah’s electric “Beast,” her oscillating Dremel saw. Eyes were spotted; clefts between crowns were delineated; buzzing cleaved the mass. Ah. Jennifer H. delivered3 more bags of beautiful tubers: Envy, Park Princess and Little Red all tucked into beds of vermiculite. Poking around in the front yard, Erik and Lucy discovered that, indeed, last year’s dahlias still slumbered safely; they added a few nutrients and left them to develop. A genteel spirit of mutual benefit pervaded the beautiful day.
LABOR OF LOVE
Because he could not be present at our tuber sale, Steve volunteered hours to label several bags full of tubers donated by Jennifer of Mill Valley. Tuesday and Saturday volunteers to the Dell labeled Park Princess, Envy and Ivanetti tubers for a while. Even Colleen labeled tubers when she came for tea at Deborah’s Maus Haus!
DAHLIA CALENDER
Sierra Nev Tuber Sale 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 FOY: Skip to My Lou
M Bay DS Show Aug. 22-23 Capitola Mall
SLDC Show Sept 5-6 JJ’s Eliot Venus BB NXO
DSC Anniversary Picnic Sept. 13 Dahlia Dell
Sierra Nevada Show Sept. 19 703-228-9860
National Show Aug. 27-30 Grand Rapids, Michigan
RENO’S FIRST DAHLIA COMPETITION
The newest dahlia society in California invites us all to attend their Dahlia Show on Saturday, September 19, at the Reno Public Market in Reno, Nevada. They are excited to host their first show at the Reno Public Market, a vibrant venue centrally located in Reno, They welcome participation from the Pacific Southwest societies! They’ve secured a discounted hotel room block at the Aloft Reno, located just 5 minutes from the show venue. You’ll find the group rate link and additional show details below.
Sierra Nevada Dahlia Society Dahlia Show
Date: September 19, 2026
Location: Upper Mezzanine, Reno Public Market. 299 E Plumb Lane. Reno, NV
OVER HILL AND DELL
How wonderful of Alex and Allison to bring stacks of gallon pots to the Dell. On a housecall, Gabrielle added two more stacks of gallon pots to the 40 that Jenn brought over from Paula’s. Thank you all for sharing! Usually Elvira is the first to unfurl at the Dell, but this year Sarah’s Eden Lillian, a pink waterlily, bloomed on April 17th. Wow! Then ACA bby unfurled her red and yellow petals and waved them at Blomquist Jeff. But even back in March Lucy’s KA’s Peppercorn started madly blooming—in a pot! Very confusing weather, to say the least. Nothing but MORE blooms from here on in. This series of mini heat waves has goosed up germination and the gentle rains have encouraged such green growth—ideal dahlia conditions! Sue’s unexpected sprouting begged for Sluggo Plus to thwart the snails, slugs and devouring earwigs. Erik’s front row section loved our heat/rain bouts and is stretching for the sun. Tim has planted several new donations to the Hillside where his seedlings thrive on the top row. Lou has mathematically laid out his stake grid and already planted several specialspecimens in the volcanoarea. Deborah’s team haspotted up lots of tubersfrom field dressing theclumps left over the winter.Most of these will go to thetuber sale, but they surely make for a lot of leafy green rightnow. So great to have Phil andMarilyn come visit. Lucy, Ken,Antoinette, Nicole, Jennifer, Carol and Steve, have diligently weeded, potted, and watered. Field dressing continues: digging up half a clump, leaving half still in place while replenishing the pantry of nutrients and trace minerals. Trooper Dan stunned Nicole yielding enough extra shoots for 4 gallon-pots, 6 4x4’s” and a few sprouts for the 1x1x3” small starter containers popped into the greenhouse. Wow! When Erik and Kat biked in to visit Jennifer, they immediately volunteered to wrestle the industrial hose into submission. Even volunteer’s friends enjoy volunteering!
BAGGING BOOGALOO
Alex Flower Farms of Napa had a lot of tubers left from their commercial sale, varieties not normally seen at our Tuber Sale. So Jenna and Tim drove up and spent 10 hours choosing a tuber, labeling a plastic sandwich sack, setting a “Premium” price, and sealing the container: 835 times!!! Amanda collected photos of every single variety and printed charts in alphabetical order so shoppers could see what they were buying. What a donation of time and expertise to make our Tuber Sale even more successful!
FABULOUS TUBER AND PLANT SALE!
So many people contributed sooo much to make this our most successful sale EVER! What a way to start our 100th anniversary of the Dahlia being the official flower of San Francisco! Most successful year ever for the Cutting Crew in the Greenhouse. Huge donation from AlexFlowerFarms. Great tubers and cuttings from Amber McDermat of Totally Tubers. Superb publicity from Jenna et. al. More buyers from the public than ever! Simply stupendous! We are wonderful! More photos and stories in our June newsletter.
THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY
Who Wants What?
While tubers, cuttings and milk cartons all produce gorgeous dahlias, they begin life with different needs. Tubers have NO ROOTS; they CANNOT absorb water. Unless you live in very dry and hot conditions, you should NOT water when you plant tubers. Conversely, cuttings do not have tubers to store nutrients; cuttings have very fine, thin roots. Ideally, cuttings should be very lightly watered twice a day. Think of a neonate: it can only sip a little milk at a time, but it nurses often. Treat your cuttings like delicate babies. Milk cartons and gallon pots usually have a full set of roots; they are very “plug and play.” They are ready to slurp up a full share of water and go 3–5 days between waterings. Keep in mind these different needs when you are planting. It’s easier to tend to cuttings correctly when they’re all in one place; likewise tubers or potted dahlias.
Nipping, Tipping, Stopping or Pinching Out
All these words refer to the same maneuver: removing the top node with its leaves from your young dahlia plant. The rationale is to force more energy into the plant’s root system early on. Pinching out results in a bushier plant with more usable blooms earlier. When should this be done? Some growers do it very early—when there are 5 or more pairs of leaves. I usually recommend when you see the very first signs of bud formation. This way you can be sure of exactly what to remove. I suggest you take the leaf pair closest to the budlet and pull them over the top of the tiny bud. This exposes the next node below. Cut just above that next node. Da dah! You’ve successfully “stopped” your dahlia. For great pix on this check out Kristine Albrecht’s YouTubes or come by the Dell on a Saturday or Tuesday morning.
FIELD DRESSING
I am still fielddressing at the Dell. I left a lot of clumps in over the winter and now many of them have sent up multiple shoots, probably because they produced multiple tubers between November and April. More tubers, less nutrients and the same tight spacing is a sure formula for poorer blooms. Instead, I dig around a clump to expose the situation. For example, Trooper Dan produced several tubers, each with one or two robust sprouts. I gently separated all of them. Then I reconditioned the hole with Dr. Earth’s Flower Girl and worm castings and put the largest, halest tuber back in. (Of course, I darkened the label with a pencil for the next season.) All the other tubers went into 4x4 and gallon pots to share at our tuber sale. Lucy field dresses by removing half the tuber mass and leaving the other half in situ but adding secret sauce before covering up.
Maps, Labels, XL Spread Sheets
Keeping trackof more than5 dahlias isasking a lotfrom ourworkingbrains. Assoon as Iplant, I writeout aVenetianblind tag and hang it from the stake adjacent. My dahlia godfatherhad wooden labels which he stapled to his stakes. Lou and Suedevise beautifully laminated printed labels pinned to their stakes.Ted Kennedy of Hollyhill drives a label into the ground when heplants, but hates to lean over to try to read it. So he also runs astring at about his 6’ eye level along the length of his rows. Then,he writes the name of the variety on garden tape and ties it to thestring above where his dahlia will grow up to. Tim and Sarahutilize decorative silver plant markers at the foot of each clump.LABEL your dahlias however you find most helpful. Tinnee andGerry draw a map of their section and label each position. Mapsvisually reinforce exactly which place which variety is in. I keep aclipboard with a sheet of paper for each row in the Dell. That ismy map.Lastly, try building an XL spread sheet on your computer. I put thenames of the introductions along the left side. Across the top Iput size, Color, form, ADS #, from whom I got my stock, andposition in the garden. This way I can slice and dice my data.How many formal decoratives am I growing? How many purple?How many BB’s? I can also keep track of height later on. Forcompetitions, I print out the far left column with the names and theADS #s. It really makes filling out those show forms easier.
Dahlia Insurance?
Despite doing everything right, sometimes things go wrong and we loose some of our dahlias. What to do? #1 Always pot up a few extra dahlias that can be subbed in when disaster happens. I use 1–2 gallon black containers and stand them all together tightly. A rogue rodent rampages your plot? Ha! Trap that varmint and replace the casualties with your spare dahlias. A prized dahlia looks wonky, wizened, gnarly—generally unhealthy? Pull it out and trash (not compost) it! Pop in one of your second stringers. My friend, Bob, had young heifers crash through his flimsy fence and feast on succulent new dahlias. He wielded a big stick, chased them out, called their owner, AND plugged in his ladies-in-waiting. The second kind of insurance I take out is to ask special dahlia friends if they will grow a couple of my very very rare, expensive, super wonderful specimens in their own lovely gardens. Thus, if disaster befalls my garden, the whole variety is not lost and I can get a couple tubers back the next season. Paula and I have traded Rolf back and forth so many times. Tragically, Rolf produces hardly any tubers; they are crummy tubers. So I take cuttings in November and keep the newly propagated snippets over the winter in my unheated greenhouse. When I lose Rolf, Paula returns the favor. I call this my Dahlia Banking System—sort of fostering out my favorite dahlia children. It saves heartache and engenders deeper friendships.
Yours in dirt,
Deborah
Photo Credits: Dibner, Dietz, Gaensler, Kaiser, Veis, Wong
Punctilious Proofmeister: Zoo Keeper Steve
Webmeister: Mini
Bagging at AlexFlowerFarms
Perqs from their hard work
Nicole plants Eden Sunday Steve