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Post by Moonlight on Aug 5, 2013 5:56:08 GMT
It's a lovely quiet dull looking day  been up a while and checked on my dahlias.  Birds are noisy outside (and they keep flicking up all my lovely manure while they are hunting for worms.)(Poor worms I always feel sorry for worms, they do a lot of good to the soil whilst constantly being under threat of a beak or being sliced by a fork or trod on by boots.) in contrast it is still quite quiet inside our house but it won't be long before HH appears as he has to get ready for work.Looking forward to my Dad measuring my dahlia blooms, I just hope that they are not coming up too big (or small) 
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Post by Moonlight on Aug 5, 2013 17:37:49 GMT
Would you believe it he didn't bring the measuring rings humpf!!! grrr! He actually looked shocked that I thought that he bring them. Yet again plants that had seemed fine and tied up ok to me, some how managed to have branches full over because they hadn't been tied up properly by me in the 1st place. (Why does it happen each time he comes to have a look? )
Took girls swimming came home and have been out in the pouring rain storm tying up. I still have about 3 pots that have not been staked - therefore not tied at all and I don't know what to do at all about where they should go. Which has been my problem this year. It has been a big problem actually, especially with my sweet peas. They have been stuck in my greenhouse waiting to be planted and to my shame never planted out. Don't get me wrong they have been watered etc. Just never had the freedom to climb. It has not helped that when I first started cutting mini vases for in the house I was effectively playing musical vases because I had to keep moving them out of any room the HH went in. I don't if they were the main trigger for his hay fever but it didn't help at all. He had it badly and it looks like Fairy Pink Wellies does as well. 
I have fallen in love with them their colour and their intoxicating fragrance so I am going to grow them and not mollycoddle them like this year and plant them outside at the earliest opportunity. I am going to have everything staked etc. from day 1.
Well that's my plan really, just got to decide where the best place for them to go is.
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Post by Moonlight on Aug 6, 2013 7:42:59 GMT
Took girls swimming came home and have been out in the pouring rain storm tying up. I still have about 3 pots that have not been staked - therefore not tied at all and I don't know what to do at all about where they should go. Which has been my problem this year. It has been a big problem actually, especially with my sweet peas. They have been stuck in my greenhouse waiting to be planted and to my shame never planted out. Don't get me wrong they have been watered etc. Just never had the freedom to climb. It has not helped that when I first started cutting mini vases for in the house I was effectively playing musical vases because I had to keep moving them out of any room the HH went in. I don't if they were the main trigger for his hay fever but it didn't help at all. He had it badly and it looks like Fairy Pink Wellies does as well.
I have fallen in love with them their colour and their intoxicating fragrance so I am going to grow them and not mollycoddle them like this year and plant them outside at the earliest opportunity. I am going to have everything staked etc. from day 1.
Well that's my plan really, just got to decide where the best place for them to go is.
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Post by Tel on Aug 6, 2013 18:32:30 GMT
Maybe he did not want to get them dirty.  |
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Post by Moonlight on Aug 6, 2013 20:46:30 GMT
Maybe he did not want to get them dirty.  Good one Tel. I do have a couple of photos of him using one but they were really a case of my Dad humouring me and he was choosy which dahlia he measured while my fingers were on the camera shoot button. My favourite photos of him, well anyone really, are the ones when they don't realise that you are taking a photo.
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Post by Moonlight on Aug 6, 2013 21:00:33 GMT
It was recycling rubbish day today and HH picked up a newspaper to go in the bin. "Dad said to save my newspapers..." (blank look) "because I might need them soon"( ). He didn't ask why, anything that I say that begins with a sentence along the lines of "Dad said..." he knows will be almost certainly be about dahlias and if it is, it will be yet another half hour spent discussing them in detail that he really doesn't want to know.
I love my husband, loves me, loves our children and tolerates my dahlias. 
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Post by Tel on Aug 7, 2013 6:05:54 GMT
It was recycling rubbish day today and HH picked up a newspaper to go in the bin. "Dad said to save my newspapers..." (blank look) "because I might need them soon"(). He didn't ask why, anything that I say that begins with a sentence along the lines of "Dad said..." he knows will be almost certainly be about dahlias and if it is, it will be yet another half hour spent discussing them in detail that he really doesn't want to know.
I love my husband, loves me, loves our children and tolerates my dahlias. Your HH tolerates your dahlia's. Just to show how much interest my OH takes in my hobby, when we went round the dahlia trials last Saturday to see how Birkenshaw Pudsey was progressing, she said to me what do they call it. |
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Post by Moonlight on Aug 7, 2013 12:42:58 GMT
Even my Dad thinks I am crazy today.
Mega roll eyes moment.
Feel a bit of an idiot but there you go sometimes, that's the way the cookie crumbles...
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Post by Moonlight on Aug 7, 2013 14:58:38 GMT
This is what happened...
Came home from doing something fun and messy with the girlies, half way home the cry went up:
"Grandad's here!!!!!!!!!!!" My two excited little girls burst in the house looking for Grandad, go and have a look at the dahlias, said I. They should have known.
I was right. 
He brought with me a familiar looking packet. He's put his name on them with a big permanent marker. I think he'll be taking them to the next show. My Jomanda and Mary's Jomanda are fine but my Weston Pirate bit close to the mark. so any bigger it would be a .
But as suspected I have a big problem, well actually it's a too small problem.
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Downham Royal is classified as a Miniature Ball not a Large Pom.
(Why I kept telling my Dad that it was too small for it to be a small ball, haven't a clue. Felt more than a tad silly.)
So that has effectively ruined my chances at the Dahlia show. 
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Post by markb on Aug 7, 2013 17:31:04 GMT
Don't panic moonlight. You can still enter an undersize bloom although it may get penalised (down-pointed) for being too small. That depends on whether the judge has read the rule book!!!
However, the current rule book states that miniature ball are between 2 inches and 4 inches in diameter - which your Downham Royal is.
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Post by Tel on Aug 8, 2013 18:54:29 GMT
You will have to count the number of stems you have on your Downham Royal Moonlight. Next year reduce the number of stems you grow on it, to increase the size of bloom. |
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Post by Moonlight on Aug 9, 2013 0:31:06 GMT
Don't panic moonlight. You can still enter an undersize bloom although it may get penalised (down-pointed) for being too small. That depends on whether the judge has read the rule book!!! However, the current rule book states that miniature ball are between 2 inches and 4 inches in diameter - which your Downham Royal is. |
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Post by Moonlight on Aug 9, 2013 0:39:17 GMT
You will have to count the number of stems you have on your Downham Royal Moonlight. Next year reduce the number of stems you grow on it, to increase the size of bloom.
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Post by Moonlight on Aug 9, 2013 0:53:31 GMT
It was my turn to have a big flat parcel.  Mum and Dad were round. Took my Mum down to show her my tomatoes (good opportunity to show her my dahlias, not that you could miss them now.) Was showing her my Weston Pirate and noticed that something had eaten the tips of the petals. Even I don't need a ring to see that that was going to be too small. Really cross.
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Post by markb on Aug 9, 2013 11:42:36 GMT
Don't panic moonlight. You can still enter an undersize bloom although it may get penalised (down-pointed) for being too small. That depends on whether the judge has read the rule book!!! However, the current rule book states that miniature ball are between 2 inches and 4 inches in diameter - which your Downham Royal is. If you can grow them close to the edge of the ring without sacrificing form then yes it would be better. Some varieties loose refinement and look 'coarse' the bigger they get. In close competition a good big 'un will usually beat a good little 'un. |
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been up a while and checked on my dahlias. 
Birds are noisy outside (and they keep flicking up all my lovely manure while they are hunting for worms.)(Poor worms I always feel sorry for worms, they do a lot of good to the soil whilst constantly being under threat of a beak or being sliced by a fork or trod on by boots.) in contrast it is still quite quiet inside our house but it won't be long before HH appears as he has to get ready for work.
).
). He didn't ask why, anything that I say that begins with a sentence along the lines of "Dad said..." he knows will be almost certainly be about dahlias and if it is, it will be yet another half hour spent discussing them in detail that he really doesn't want to know.
