To see the full original newsletter with all the photos click here to get the pdf: January 2015 Newsletter
NEXT MEETING: January 13 @ 7:30 @ 9th and Lincoln
Program: New Introductions slides from ADS. Whet your appetite on the treasures in our futures. Who will bring the first treats of the year????
FINE FEAST; PLAYFUL PREDATION
Arriving an hour early, Tinnee, Pat, Devorah and Bill aligned our banquet tables and belaid them with seasonal decorations. Jenna set up the bar with wine from Erik and sodas from Pam and Larry. She essayed a ham in Erik’s stead and it disappeared in a swallow. We chose from several quiches, including Janet’s especially fluffy, cheesy, spinachy one. Pizzas abounded, too. Thank goodness Devorah rustled up the sole vegetable: purple cabbage in yogurt sauce. Ens, we love you for your home-rolled lumpia. Many revelers nabbed several BEFORE festivities officially got under way. Discerning palates commented on the quirky bite of Deborah’s chicken curry and Rosa’s green pasta-with-a-kick. We picked Lola’s turkey down to a soup-starter carcass. Baked in San Jose, Ken’s shortbread/chocolate/nuts confection crashed many restraint resolutions. Darkly dense, Bill’s persimmon bread truly satisfied.
THE ART OF THE STEAL . . .
As the High Priestess of Predation, Deborah ring mastered 35 gardeners indulging their inherent larceny. Mike unveiled an early surprise, a humongous ceramic toad complete with batteries for sonorous ribbitting. To his amazement, not only did someone steal it from him, but it was stolen yet again to join the frozen status of the two pairs of loppers, fancy coffee mugs, the narcissi, poinsettia, Super Bloom, garden gloves, Chinatown wide handled scissors, and a sparkling red stiletto slipper wine holder. A gorgeous framed Fern Irene moved around the room to soon settle in the Arctic zone. Jenna should have worn a pedometer to clock her steps as she represented Shelly and Nicholas as well as herself, stealing and being stolen from so many times. Thank you to everyone who brought such compelling gifts, especially the ones wrapped to confuse. Ha!
Let the games begin
. . . AND THE FRUITS OF THEIR LARCENOUS LABOR
. . . and Scott
Leo cleans up
Colleen’s shear excitement
Loppers for Tony . . .
Jaime needs a bigger napkin to hide his treasure
Susan and . . .
Pat’s colorful find
. . . Ken score gloves
They gathered to talk, eat and steal;
everyone wondered who’d get the best deal.
The food was delicious, the gifts abounded,
and for the frog Mike was surprisingly hounded.
By the time it was over, there were smiles all around,
with gloves and wine, loppers and plants for the ground.
Another great party, though our Santa was AWOL,
look for him in 2015, when we gather one and all.
The friendship we share at the Christmas galas,
is rivaled only by our obsession with our beloved Dahlias.
Baker Bill’s Big Black Box
Gino looking for advice
There’s plotting afoot
Flashback to Christmas 2013- look for Santa and helper to return in 2015
Craig hijacks hydrangeas
DOUBLE INduesMENT
Devorah reports that 20 people turned in their membership forms at our holiday party, thereby receiving three raffle tickets EACH. If you get yours in by the January meeting, you will still receive 2 raffle tickets. If you send it in to Devorah and she receives your membership form by Jan. 31, you will earn one raffle ticket. Devorah will draw the three winners at our February meeting. First prize: $25 gift certificate to our tuber sale; second prize, $20 gift certificate; third prize $15. You need not be present at the February meeting to win. All certificates are redeemable at our Tuber Sale the third weekend in April. Click here for the membership form.
I wondered if I can write my dues as a dependent expense
Devorah’s present to all who renewed – raffle tickets to the tuber sale!
MEDIA PRESENCE
DSC has two places you can post, question, comment or show pix of your dahlias. Craig just finished a forum: Norcaldahliagrowers.com. You will need to register and have a password. Devorah has a great walk-through explanation; ask her for it. Deborah has a FaceBook page –Dahlia Society of California– for which you would need to send in a “friend” request. Both of these are excellent places if you are interested in exchanging tubers with other aficionados. Bunches of pix from our holiday party reside on the FB site already.
SHIMMERING IN THE RAIN
Whose street garden still flaunts show quality Spartacus, Pam Howden, Jessica and glorious roses this time of year? Sue’s! Glen Park strollers marvel at the feast of color up her steep verdant slope. Must be the perfect micro climate: sheltered, southern facing. At the Dell, the Dahlia Imperialis burst purple blooms at 10-18’ in the air.
BLOOM IN THE MUD MONTHS
Here are some fun pix of cool dahlias from around the country. Alan Fischer shares some lovely waterlillies. Roland Verrone offers his new Intros at Verrone’s Pride of the Prairie Dahlias. Roland writes, “In case you are wondering about the name Verrone’s ‘14 OGC 90th, it is named after the Olympia Garden Club for their 90th year since forming the garden club. The garden club members have toured my garden for the past 4 years and they actually picked that bloom to be named. for their club.” The Boleys sell at Birch Bay Dahlias.
Bloomquist John F.
Bloomquist Candy Cane
Hapet Duo
R. Mona
Sandia Serrenity
Ball tower
Verone’s Mya
Bloomquist John F.
Ball pie
Edwin’s Sunset
Mytle’s Folly
JUST JANUARYING AROUND
Happy New Year! We are still pulling clumps up from the Dell. So much rain has reduced many to mush; but several still have had a few tubers to glean. I immediately pop my tubers into milk cartons and tuck them into my germinating loft—because it’s the warmest spot in my drafty 1907 post-earthquake home. I stack them helter skelter and check once a week for sprouts. When I spot white points nosing through the dirt, I bring the milk carton into the light. When its sprig is 6” tall, it goes into the greenhouse under lights.
Last chance to plant a cover crop of vetch, peas, fava beans or mustard. These transfer nitrogen from the air down to the roots; in April they can be tilled directly into the ground. WEED!!!! Every weed you pull now thwarts thousands of weeds next month. Try potting up some tulip or daffodil bulbs into black 1-3 gallon pots and and planting them pot and all in the garden. Their gay blooms cheer up the brown mud months considerably. Liberally ply your garden with compost: leaves, grass clippings, kitchen waste, and fishing guts. If you plan to add amendments, it’s a good idea to first send in a couple soil samples so you know what you need. Duh! So obvious, but so seldom heeded.
Lou, Devi and Pat begin their cutting operations in the greenhouse to produce those fabulous treasures for our tuber sale in April. Mike and Martha again donate two of each of their A and AA varieties since that’s what disappears first in the April feeding frenzy. About half the cuttings I took at the Dell in November and December continue to eke out existence in my unheated greenhouse in my back yard. I love spritzing them with a super dilute solution of anti-fungal/anti-bug/fertilizer whilst it rains; drops dance on the panes and the garden redolence deepens. My kitty sits at the door with her nose just out of the wet.
We revel in propagating heaven. Without heat, it takes up to 6 weeks for my cuttings to develop roots. Once I am sure they are thriving, I will transfer them from their 2”x2” to 4”x4” pots. Lou/Pat/Devi put their cuttings directly into 4×4’s and look how beautifully theirs turn out.
Yours in Dirt,
Dahlia Society of California, Inc., San Francisco, CA — Copyrighted
Editor: Deborah Dietz
Page layout: Mike Willmarth
Photo credits: Boley, Dietz, Fischer, Hart, Verrone
Originally Organized in 1917 in San Francisco
the Dahlia was adopted as the Official Flower of San Francisco
on October 4, 1926 by its Board of Supervisors