To see the full original newsletter with all the photos click here to get the pdf: May 2025 Newsletter
NEXT MEETING: May 13 at 7:30 PM. Deborah will lead us through a year of growing dahlias sprinkled with fun dahlia esoterica tossed in for piquancy. Invite your family, friends and neighbors. There will also be more dahlias available for sale. Donate your late-developing extras, please. Take this opportunity to fill in the last remaining holes in your plot. Who will delight us with treats? This will be the first meeting for many curious people, so let’s delight them with unexpected goodies and maybe they will join DSC????
KINDNESS AMBASSADOR
Julie wants to promote neighborhood connectivity via kindness. Representing dahlias, Julie will give talks, write squibs and share information. In her first official job, Julie represented DSC at the inauguration of the USPS Dahlia Stamps which occurred whilst the rest of us were ambassadoring at our Tuber Sale. Thank you, Julie!
YALLA! LET’S TOUR MOROCCO!
Deborah bused us around Rabat, Fez, Volubilis, The Sahara and Marrakech, down narrow isles of souks with mountains of spices and into otherworldly landscapes where Casbahs rise and fall back into their adobe origins. Solar panels have electrified water pumps even in areas without home electricity. Even nomads use cell phones!
DAHLIA SHOW NEW ZEALAND STYLE
Marissa’s Visit to the 87th North Island Dahlia Show
In February, Marissa visited New Zealand’s 87th North Island National Dahlia Society Show, held at the stunning Hamilton Gardens—a must-see for anyone who loves flowers and gardening. While there, she met Sir Dr. Keith Hammett, one of New Zealand’s top professional breeders, who has released over 300 commercial cultivars, including well known sweet peas and dahlias!
Among the many classes, the standout competitions were for Champion Bloom and Champion Vase, with top honors going to Hamari Accord and Acacia Kylie. One detail caught Marissa’s eye: the vase entries had no leaves on the stems, required exactly three stems, and were all displayed in standard green plastic vases packed with newspaper. Winners received ribbons, certificates, and even engraved trophies—very cool!
A highlight was the class of floating water lilies in bowls, and the elegant framed dahlias on black velvet as though they were pictures but were still alive. The winning framed dahlia was submitted by the youngest competitors at the show—three sisters who started a U-pick dahlia farm as part of their homeschool project. Since then, they’ve expanded into dahlia-themed art, photography, and even wrote a book! You can follow their journey on Facebook @The Kiwi Connection. They would love to connect with other young dahlia growers, so feel free to introduce them to budding growers in your network!
FUEL FOR HUNGRY DAHLIANEERS
Peggy, what yummy cute cupcakes! Thanks to Pat for her mint Oreos and to John and Annette for their pita chips. Equally crunchy were the Kawaguchi’s pretzel crisps and cocoa wafers. Cara, we wait for this time every year to enjoy your tangy kumquats and cookies. Brigid, your ginger cookies spiced up our evening. Thank you to all who supported our dahlia community AGAIN!
BE$T TUBER $ALE YET!
Wonderful volunteers conveyed a hundred flats of 4×4’s and many many gallon pots from the greenhouse to the Hall of Flowers on Friday. More volunteers set up tables and arranged everything by form and size. On Saturday more tubers and plants poured in. More volunteers dug in to sort dahlias. More pix and details in our June newsletter! Congratulations to all of us!
HILLSIDE AND DELL ACTIVITIES
Sue has been digging deep holes and sinking her gopher cages. Sarah left half her stock in over the winter and is delighted that most of the plants have phoenix-like re-emerged. Lou has mathematically laid out his plot and his stakes are exactly equidistant. Tim has rechecked the entire hillside drip equipment: All systems GREEN. When Tim learned that the Aids Memorial Garden featured NO dahlias, he immediately offered to plant 40. Check them out this summer. Nicole, Steve and Sarah dug their first compost holes for lame Deborah. It’s hard to believe how much dirt comes out of those deceptively capacious pits. But oh, such sumptuous soil—like fudge! Brigid and Ken, weed busters nonpareil, attacked the rich pasture. Deborah is scrambling to take home 2-3 clumps per visit to divide. She’s pulling weeds from her little bench, slowly. Contemplating an erupting dahlia from last year, Deborah knew she shouldn’t try to jab the shovel down with her shredded menisci. What to do? Sneak around doctors’ orders? Conveniently, a husky young man peddled up asking dahlia questions. “Would you like to help out a little bit?” she asked. The genial biker dug up 4 sophomores and then helped Sarah pot up 25 double white tree dahlias from the Warden’s garden. He fashioned 20 anti-slug fences from copper strapping tape and got to choose around which emerging dahlias to place his metal collars. Dahlias have a way of involving everyone.
THE MUSTS OF MAY
What to grow?
Each year I seem to favor a specific form or color. Last year I tried to buy more purple dahlias. It’s the rarest color and very very few are the rich royal hue of Thomas Edison. 1926 must have been a unique year. One year I went ball crazy: big balls, mini balls, poms. Every year I search out novelties; I love their uniqueness and how they hint towards our future. Other people have other criteria. If you are planning a wedding, will you be growing white white and white tipped dahlias? Are you thinking of selling cut blooms? Then probably you will be growing balls and formal decoratives because they hold up so well. Will you be throwing an autumnal bash? Then you might lean towards the autumn colors or burnt orange, golden, and rusty red. Would you like to participate in our competition but have a limited growing space? Poms and mignon singles grow in pots and are cherished for their smallness. Maybe you’d like to memorialize family members or friends by planting dahlias that remind you of them: Pam Howden, Crazy Legs, or even Bedhead. Sonia brought me a long-forgotten introduction from my dahlia godfather, Bob Bloomfield, called Urchin. Whenever I spot it growing at the Dell it will be like hugging that wonderful old crotchety man one more time. Perhaps you are thinking of the special cla$$e$ at our $how? Check out last year’s show schedule for the probability of which varieties might be sponsored this year. https://www.dahliadell.org/upcoming-events It’s always fun to receive a check from Lou.
Planting
Once again, let me stress that if you are planting cuttings, put them 2-3 exposed nodes below the surface. These notches are where the new tubers this year will develop. If they remain above ground, no tubers will grow. You will be sad. If the plant is small, still dig the hole as deep as it should be to cover the nodes but WAIT to fill in the hole until your dahlia has grown significantly. TUBERS: do NOT water! unless your temperatures are very very hot. Let the shoot poke through to the surface before you bless it with water. You might even put a 5-gallon black pot over the spot where you’ve buried the tuber. The black pot protects the ground and warms up the spot like a mini greenhouse and accellerates the germination process.
Secret Sauce
I’ve been using Dr. Earth Flower Girl for the last couple years. I like the trace minerals, the microrrhyzzi and the microbiota. Tim has used MaxSea, derived from kelp. Paula gave me a bag of Azomite, which contains traces of over 70 different minerals. I’ll try a teaspoon with each of my plantings and see if the colors are brighter or the plants show more resistance to bugs and diseases. I also like Calcium Nitrate but this year that might be redundant. Anyone with access to bunny or llama poop can work those in any time. MMM! I was recently asked about adding commercial steer manure. This is mostly a filler; it would help break up hard clay soil. It is safe to add at the time of planting. It would bring a little nitrogen but few nutrients or trace elements.
Prophylaxis
Gophers, moles and voles are relentless. Many growers use raised beds with hardware cloth bottoms. Tim and Sarah use hardware cloth- lined long trenches. Sue and Phil use individual gopher cages. Helpful hint: let your wire barrier rise 2” above the surface in case you have the Leonardo da Vinci Varmint who will try an above ground assault. New green shoots are so alluring to so many creatures. Sluggo Plus covers snails, slugs AND earwigs who can reduce new cuttings to memories of expensive buffets in one night. Paula had something snacking on her somewhat established dahlias. Bunnies? Rats? Squirrels? She placed mesh garbage baskets over them; when the tips brushed the top of the basket, she cut out the top. Munching thwarted. I use extra gopher cages turned over to protect vulnerable (and costly) new dahlias at the Dell. Stubborn somnolent tubers? Try putting a 5-gallon black pot over the top for 2 weeks. This will act as a mini greenhouse, warming up the exact area and excluding marauding munchers. Cross your petals! Pictured above are alternative gopher baskets made from big black pots.
Labels
I use old venetian blinds with pencil. Pencils do not fade like sharpies do in the sun. Moreover, throughout the season I can write notes on the back of the label: height, best color, or donate to DSC. John Morton likes to affix his labels so that they dance in the wind and jingle against his poles. He says he can read them more easily than if they were clear down in the ground; the clatter discourages animals; the vibrations may irritate visiting burrowers to the point of leaving. Hmmm? Sue, Lou and Sarah laminate their labels to withstand weather. The public really appreciates being able to read names, forms and sizes. Draw a map. My section of the Dell is on a grid from rows A-P and numbered down each aisle. I also input my selections into an XL spread sheet with the cultivars down the left side. Across the top I have geographical position in my garden (eg F3), ADS official #, size, form, color and source (from where I acquired the tuber/cutting). This way I can slice and dice my data: How many FD’s? How many miniatures? How many purple varieties? For shows, I print an alphabetical list with the ADS # to save me a LOT of time. It is very very good to be redundant.
Embarrassment of Sprouts
Due to my shredded menisci, I have been unable to exhume all 220 of my dahlias yet. Many of the returnees send up 5-15 shoots. Yikes! These new siblings will be fighting for a scarcity of nutrients and light. Ideally, only ONE shoot should be allowed to thrive. Over the course of the next two months, I will try to field dress (remove 3/4 of the tuber trove below each plant) and reinvigorate the soil by adding secret sauce. This is very challenging when I can’t kneel down. I did learn, however, that putting these extra tubers in gallon containers last year made wonderful “pot roots” for this season.
Water
Once again, tubers have NO ROOTS. They cannot absorb moisture. Watering tubers will cause them to rot. There is plenty of atmospheric H20 to get them started unless you live in a very very hot area. Cuttings have very fine roots. They can absorb a little water at a time and could ideally handle light watering morning and night or you could indulge them with frequent spritzes. Milkcartoned tubers form a brick of massive roots. They tolerate generous watering well. So if you plant all three of these types of dahlias, you should either hand water or have adjustable emitters on your drip system until they all fluff up into lovely plants. Remember, our Bay Area weather is ODD; sometimes we see sun; but often we live in gloomiest fog. Wait for your plants to tell you then need more water. Really.
I am so excited by the new and cool dahlias I have this year. I can hardly wait for them to bloom!
Yours in dirt,
Deborah
Photo Credit: Dietz, Dibner, Gaensler, Ide, Kaiser, Viray
Meticulous Proofreading: Steve
URL Magician: Mini