To see the full original newsletter with all the photos click here to get the pdf: November 2024 Newsletter
NEXT MEETING: November 12 at 7:30 PM at 9th and Lincoln.
Lou Paradise reprises his inimitable dig-out techniques and dividing know-how. He will have practice clumps for those who would like to try to divide them. Election! Vote for next year’s officers and board members. Who will bring fuelish treats for hungry gardeners?
JULIE BRINGS THE NATIONAL SHOW TO DSC
Julie grows 80 dahlias down the peninsula where she has begun selling bouquets. But she grew up in northern Washington where she helped her dad raise dahlias. So she felt compelled to combine family and curiosity to experience her first National Show. “So many gorgeous blooms!” Julie exclaimed overwhelmed by the almost 4000 dahlias on display compared to DSC’s @1200-1400. After walking us around via PowerPoint, she highlighted the winners putting both winning entries and their exhibit cards on the same slide. Wow! She loved meeting Dick Parshal, the hybridizer of the ClearView Dahlias as well as the Rivers Growers. Meeting famous gene magicians and putting faces to famous brands delighted her although she wished the name tags were not on such long cords as she was constantly squinting at peoples’ navels to determine who they were. One difference Julie noticed between the Wenatchee National Show and our homegrown Floribunda! was the lack of public; only dahlia people seemed present. Thank you to Kauna for bringing some of the National Show swag to pass around. Fun ornaments, pins, bottle openers, measuring tapes and key lights. So fun!
DEBORAH’S FORM CHALLENGE
Deborah set up 9 dahlias and challenged us to figure out their names. First we decided on form based on petal shape. Then guessed at color: was it orange? gold? flame? Was it pink? dark pink? lavender? light blend? Finally, noting that it was already October and blooms get smaller, what size were they? Based on these three traits—form, color and size— we could use the ADS Classification Book or the ADS cell ap to narrow down probable names. Challenge yourselves in your own gardens when you already know the name of your dahlia. Can you nail the form, color and size? PRACTICE!!!
PREPARING TO DIG
Erik walked us through lopping down to 5 notches to maintain the cane water seals; leaving the plants dormant at least a week and ideally 3 weeks; and digging up so as to keep the fragile necks intact, not broken. When asked how to keep dahlias going until Thanksgiving, Deborah chimed in with “severe deadheading and rigorous trimming back to new growth.”
SUCH GOOD GOODIES!
Erik and Jenna contributed Girl Scout coconut balls—so good they disappeared before the meeting started! Anita baked pumpkin cookies. Maggie brought both cookies AND nuts. Nonies Cookies arrived via Patricia. Jen T donated exquisite canele cakes—wow! such taste and texture from such simple looking little bunts. And bless Brigid for the box of Russian chocolates! Major fuel for budding gardeners. Thank you all for supporting your fellow dahianiers in such bountiful and delicious ways!
CODIFICATION CONFAB
Our DSC board members gathered to write down the nitty details behind our Tuber Sale and our Show. We are using Google Docs where upon all of us can write to capture all the details: where to get fire permits? How many tables are needed? where to post social media? how many feet of how wide table cloths? There are soo many essential details that go into our endeavors. Deborah asked, “Why should we have to invent the wheel anew every year? Why not have a written down, accessible list to check off?” Thank you, Jenna for generously hosting this crew.
FLOWER$ OF THE YEAR
Consider Flowers of the Year as Challenge Flowers. We challenge each member to grow EDEN ALICE and BUMBLE RUMBLE. Sarah reports that Eden Alice makes so many blooms she got a x2, x3 and winning x5 from a single plant. To show how serious we are, DSC has allotted major premium$ for these: The best single Flower of the Year is $50 each and the best triple Flower of the Year will pay $75! So please plan to grow both these WONDERFUL dahlias in the up coming season. UPDATE: We are having trouble getting 10 tubers of Bumble Rumble to put on our cutting table the beginning of January. We have tried Swan Island and Triple Wren Farms. Neither is willing to ship to us the beginning of January. Do any of you have suggestions or tubers?
MARK THESE DATES!
DSC Tuber Sale 2025: April 12
DSC Dahlia Show 2025: August 17-18
Dahlia Dell Walk ’n Talk: August 9 and September 13
NEWSLETTER APPRENTICE
Who would like to help Deborah gather info and put together our newsletter? This would involve writing a few articles, collecting photos, and joining Deborah at her Maus Haus for laying out and reducing the entire megillah once a month. We need someone who knows how to take over in case something were to happen to our editor who’s written the DSC newsletter since 1988. eee gads!
BOISE BEAUTIES
Boise Dahlia Society invited me (Deborah Dietz) to its second annual Dahlia Show. What cool architecture! The JUMP building (Jack’s Urban Meeting Place) utilized outdoor space equally with indoor rooms. Some of Jack Simplot’s famed tractor collection was displayed around outdoor restaurants, paths and benches. The Boise Dahlia Society’s show filled the 5th floor room completely surrounded by glass windows; we had great natural light and cool air conditioning. An origami tent housed a running educational powerpoint loop about how to grow dahlias. I terrified myself on the 5-story tube slide looper: slip, rip, swoosh!
Wow! The Simplot (Ore-Ida Tater Tots) office building across the street hosts a huge greenhouse on the 8th floor! What vision! What a surprise to encounter Brad and Rosemary Freeman, our ADS president and New Societies Chairperson. Later Wayne Lobaugh, Linda Cook-Holmes and I answered horticulture questions from atop a lovely stage. Bloomerati, indeed! The arrangements section delighted the public. In the performing arts category, one designer turned ballet shoes into dahlia vases. A River’s Wilderness arrangement included a real water fall! The overall winner obtained products from 6 farms including her family’s. The base was filled with potatoes and onions; corn stalks provided heights. Wow! Camron Paisley implemented a special category for large dahlias in honor of my brother, Mike Dietz. Most of my Boise clan members wept as more and more people arrived in his honor. Mike Dietz loved to grow dahlias and loved to give them away. My clerk, Kristin, learned from Mike, her soccer coach, many many years ago. Kristin’s daughter, Molly, 10, helped award all our blue and higher ribbons. Pictured is Cameron’s KA’s Bo Peep.
On my last day in Boise, LuAnn took me to the Arboretum located at the old (from the 1800’s) penitentiary. What magnificent vision. Acres include a major venue stage and outdoor “rooms” for weddings as well as wandering paths, which took us to their dahlia collection. Their young volunteer explained that they’d just had “a grasshopper plague of biblical proportions.” Learning about hybridization at the dahlia show, LuAnn captured a few seed heads to experiment with. Gas was only $3.37 and people had front and back yards. There were no tents on the sidewalks nor garbage on the streets. No wonder so many Californians have moved to Idaho.
BEE LINE FARM VISITOR
Karla visited our Dell up from her Ben Loman farm where she grows 500 dahlias of more than 350 varieties. “I plant in rainbows. All the reds together, then oranges, pinks, whites for weddings and blushes and then on the far end my yellows and crazies like Giraffe.” When asked how she could dare employ a “Cut Your Own” policy, Karla explained that she carefully educates each snipper with a “consciousness cutting course” before turning scissors over to them. How does she plant a cover crop? “I don’t. My school kids do.” After an educational discussion, she lets the kids fill their pockets with fava beans. She gives them trowels and tells them to “Plant your seeds everywhere!” They have a ball running around digging holes and seeding nitroginators. Her older teen visitors sometimes move manure or compost for her. Bee Line Farms also hosts water color classes and yoga sessions. To thwart burrowing critters from the acres of National Forest that surrounds her oasis, Karla has sunk a 4’ wall of hardware cloth around her dahlia patch. She prolongs beauty by planting bearded iris and daffodils for spectacular springs. Bee Line Farms is a family affair. Her sister runs the front end and her mother-in-law lives on the property. Karla is so proud of her 7 and 12 year old daughters who contribute so much work and joy. When Karla visited the Dell this month, she jumped right in and began stripping mildewed leaves, deadheading, and weeding at our Dell. She educated a group of Chinese tourists. Come back, soon, Karla!
DELL DOINGS
Still color on the Hill and in the Dell despite both heat waves and rain. Sue’s Jessicas and AC CJ still produce show quality blooms. Erik’s Eden Stacia blazes beautifully in the front row. Sarah’s 20th Ave Memorys burst still perfectly on our event horizon while her Twisted Sister has finally come into its own. Steve and Deborah were delighted with an extravagant Quienzeanos pasejo that filed down the stairs around the Dell and into the picnic table area. In the Dell, Lou’s have gone to seed; he will have so many fine pods to choose from for next years seedlings. Tinnee’s later planting is yielding later wonderful flowers. Check out Gerry and all these huge Nick Srs! Wow! Deborah marvels at how BIG her Pennhill Watermelons and KA’s Clouds are still. Kenora Macop B just keeps producing malevolently dark blooms. Heather dressed her “helper” Siri in an appropriate Dell volunteer onesey. Down on her knees, Heather murmered sweet comforts to Siri whilst weeding! Lucy and Ken cleared out brown leaves and dead canes. Karen watered all the pots multiple ties. Tara surprised Deborah with a huge box of cut up venetian blinds for next year’s labels. Thank you!! Sarah commented, “We turned a corner this week.” Indeed, the glorious profusion and perfection wanes; the straggly but still colorful limps on. So amazing for so late in the season. What an amazing October!
NOVEMBER NOSTRUMS
Digging Out
Should you dig up? Do you have well drained soil? If so, you might not dig out until February or March like I do. If not, you need to get your clumps out before we get too much rain which could rot your dormant tubers. Lou gets his clumps out during December so he can place them on the cutting bench the beginning of January. Sue gets most of hers up before New Years, too. I rarely dig up plants I have grown from cuttings their first year; the first year tubers are usually gnarly and small. I leave them for a second year. I often leave my A and AA’s in for a second year, because they often make so few tubers their first year in the ground. But if you’re going to dig yours out, figure out the date and back up by 3 weeks. That’s when you should lop back to 4-5 notches. By letting your clump go dormant for 3 weeks prior to prizing them out of the ground, you allow time for the skin of the tuber to harden up and the creative hormones to turn off.
Prolonging Bloom
Do you want a bouquet of dahlias on your Thanksgiving table? If so, severely cut back to new vigorous growth each time you deadhead. Clear out the brown and icky leaves from the ground and from your bushes. Let the waning light in. Double disbud to make for longer stronger stems. Our October heat wave and continued halcyon warmth have given a new boost to the plants at the Dell.
Share the Effort
Invite friends to help you with your DigOut. It’s so much more fun, and of course, it shares the work load. There are so many steps to processing a tuber clump, that talent of any kind can find a satisfying job in DigOut processes. Lucy often cleans tubers with a toothbrush and pops them in the 10% bleach solution as I carve them off the clump. My neighbors come over for wine and help write names on dried tubers into the winter months. Thus they “earn” their summer bouquets. In January I usually take a crew to the Warden’s garden to help them pull up dahlias. Let me know if you want to help out then. I usually have a crock pot of soup to reward weary exhumers.
Yours in dirt,
“Deborah
Photo credits: C. Dietz, D. Dietz, E. Dietz, Dibner, Gaensler, Ivy, Lanesey, Smith
Punctilious Proofreader: Steve
URL procuress and web updater: Mini