My write up of the Dahlia Talk on Tuesday.
Dahlia Talk
03-25-25
By Ted J. Kennedy
What do you get when you when you place 49 dahlia enthusiasts into a virtual room and give them microphone so they can ask any dahlia question that they want and these questions are enthusiastically answered by people as far away as Australia? Do we care how they grow dahlias in Australia? Of course we care, because if the subject is dahlias, we want to know everything. Yes, this is Dahlia Talk and people asked those questions and told those stories and gave opinions on all things dahlias.
There was no overall theme for this session. People just fired questions and several people would answer. That makes writing up a so called summary of the meeting rather difficult. When that happens I will attempt to write âone linersâ and sometimes I only remember the question and not the answer and vice versa.
What do white flies, thrips and wire worms have in common? Perhaps this is three questions in one but all had no definitive answers. If you have any one of these insect dahlia issues, no one had a slam dunk solution. These three insects consider your dahlias to be food and they are dining at an âall you can eat buffetâ. Wire worms have been discussed at least twice before and growing a cover crop of mustard is one thing that really helps but it only helps. I hesitated to offer my untested ultimate solution that would not rely on chemicals and probably would work well for wire worms: Dig down 18 inches into your garden soil and remove the dirt and run it through a screen and all those wriggly white worms would not pass through the screen. This is one of the stupidest things I have written as that would entail hundreds of hours of hard labor to get rid of a few wire worms. And that brings me back to white flies and thrips that are resistant to any insecticide you can buy. Whether it was said in jest, I do not know, but the person said âuse a vacuum cleanerâ.
We wasted 15-20 minutes on growing those stupid, ostentatious GIANT dahlias that are only good for showing off or entering into dahlia shows. Actually, most everyone was interested in how the experts do it. As they say about secrets: âIf I tell you, I will have to shoot youâ. We were able to get several experts who have tons of success in shows and in contests for the largest dahlia to reveal several methods that work. Initially, they were reluctant to share but when one revealed a couple of secrets, another grower opened up a bit and agreed to share more and then went a little further and said: âand I do this tooâ. I bet you think that I am going to reveal the secrets of growing giant dahlias in this write up. 48 people got to hear that expert spill his guts on his lifetime quest to to grow the biggest dahlias and you expect me to share that secret information in this write up that you are reading because you failed to participate in the meeting. Fat chance. Sour grapes: The information was probably many things you have heard before. But exactly how they do things is more important than whether they do something and it was fascinating.
Kenora Challenger was grown by Paul and Cheryl Howard and entered into this year's ADS National Show and won best in show. Paul explained to us many of the things he did to coax a best in show flower out of notoriously âdifficult to growâ flower. I should point out that his selection of that flower to exhibit was based on it's past success in winning best in show awards at National Shows and that it had done that four times before. Again, shall I reveal the secrets in this forum or tell you to participate in Dahlia Talk? Some tidbits: He said that he likes to disbud three down. Show people know what means. He said he likes to remove all flowers from the plants until the time the flowers are needed for the show date. In other words, he knows how many weeks it takes to grow the flower and allows the plants to reserve their energy to grow flowers for that show. He likes to grow enough flowers on the plant so that the entry will be no more than an inch larger than the minimum size for that class. He says larger flowers lose form in several ways as compared to smaller versions. And these are only few things he said.
We changed the subject from all this âshow talkâ to dahlias that are grown because people just like them. It was pointed out that avid show exhibitors comprise a very small number of people, perhaps only a few thousand in America(Canada included but not that wasteland of Australia). That was a friendly jibe to get rise out our Australian participant. People who grow dahlias because they just like them are probably at least a hundred times that number. And then there are cut flowers sellers too and when you truly discuss who grows dahlias, the show exhibitors are only a small portion albeit , a fanatical portion of all dahlia growers. And we discussed some things that the show people could do to get even more people to grow dahlias. One suggestion was to have many more âpeople's choiceâ entry categories where the show attendees select the winners. Bouquets classes, basket classes, pretty flowers, ugly flowers but lots of flowers that people would like. And prizes need to be awarded for these classes.
Dahlia colors for non show dahlias were discussed briefly. It seems that anything in a âcreamâ color is very popular these days. Yellow flowers are getting very slightly more popular and some yellow flower enthusiasts extolled their beauty. We talked a bit about âunicorn flowersâ. We talked about the various dahlia charity auctions where unicorns and newly introduced flowers sell for more money than ever before and even hundreds of dollars for one tuber.
We were graced with the presence of the Chicago National show chairman who talked about the exciting things happening at the show. He emphasized that some tours and other events are rapidly selling out and you need to sign up very soon.
Small talk: Our Canadian participant told us the tale of trying to bring a best in show entry(his words) of Clearview Edie across the border to the USA. The border inspector confiscated the blooms because of thrips. We discussed the relative merits of several big time show flowers and discussed the things like how to prepare an entry of Hamari Accord to win.
It never ends: The dahlia talk was officially over at 9PM. The connection is left active for the âdie hardsâ who cannot get enough. There were 12 participants in the âafter hoursâ session and it finally went off air at 9:36PM.
People love to pick out a flower that will bear their name. Three years later it is still with us and we grew a few plants. This year we will grow it again. Namesake is not a dahlia person or even a gardener. We need to decide what to do with it.
