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Post by Moonlight on Mar 21, 2014 14:59:12 GMT
These are my tubers in my Greenhouse. 
Top left: Weston Flamingo
Bottom left: Spanish Dancer
Top right: Brenda T and Jomanda
Bottom Right: Willo's Violet, back right Gurtla Twilight and the unlabelled blob is what is left of Mary's Jomanda.
erm, Haven't done anything yet with my Downham Royal.
It is so big it would probably break my bench.
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 23, 2014 17:22:36 GMT
HH has been working in the garden, from this last March:
This is what he left it today.
Small steps but massive improvement. He wanted to
dig the root stump up but as he had already told me that he had a bad
back he should stop for now. Glad he took my advice because we have had
rain and hail since.
Looking at the photos on preview, I wish I sorted the images out. Don't like the attachments and don't want to use tinypic.
Best have a think.
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 24, 2014 0:42:37 GMT
Brenda T with a couple of shoots.
So after holding back on trying to start my tubers off because I couldn't heat the greenhouse, I finally get them to begin to get going and they forcasted the coldest weather this year.   So I covered them their newspaper blanket. Be glad when they are in the soil. Nah, actually I quite like this bit because there is that major element of suspense. Are they ever going to grow? Will I ever learn how to take a reliable cutting? When will I realise that it has rooted? or as in last year, When will realise that it is dead? Nothing seems to happen for ages and then suddenly da dah! They appear. Well that's how it felt like last year.
Happy now, looking forward to spotting the next shoot. Wonder if it will be Weston Flamingo. I would be thrilled to bits if my Mary's Jomanda started to shoot after the hash that I made of digging it up.
Better go to bed I'm wittering.
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Post by Tel on Mar 24, 2014 7:08:25 GMT
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 24, 2014 9:08:47 GMT
Glad I did, had a hard frost last night. Went down to the greenhouse this morning and the grass was crunching under foot and as I was about to go in the greenhouse, a piece of ice - the size of hail (not talking demi iceberg)fell down the slope of the greenhouse roof and water was dripping. So warming up now. So their blankets are off and they are back in the sunshine. I'll wait a bit longer before I go mist the compost.
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 24, 2014 9:23:12 GMT
Better go to bed I'm wittering.
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 24, 2014 12:23:14 GMT
The bit of tuber that Dad took off my Jomanda has got  on it.
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 24, 2014 22:15:49 GMT
More seed picking for me today. With the bad weather rapidly approaching I thought that I needed to collect as many seed heads that I could find before the storm gets here.
I've now got 206 Staleen Condessa seeds from the one plant. Imagine a bridal bouquet of dahlia seed heads and that is what I brought up from the dahlias today. Thick long straight stems. Staleen Condessa still has flowers and is still about 7 or 8 foot high, way above our garden fence and in the storm they are going to be torn to shreds.
I forgot to mention that the 22 Eastwood Moonlight seeds came from a single seed head.
So all the Staleen Condessa seeds, my 1 Willow's Violet seed and 34 Red Balloons are going to go to Dad. I do like the Red Balloon so part of me would like to try some of those but I haven't the room.
The seeds that I am currently keeping are: Eastwood Moonlight and Downham Royal - no brainer on those 2. My 5 Weston Pirates and loads (too many for me) of Weston Spanish Dancer seeds.
Off to do a bit of counting....
To my mind it makes sense to have a go with something that I have a lot of first but then there is the time factor. Some varieties must take longer than others to get going. I've got some mulling over to do.
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Post by Tel on Mar 25, 2014 12:49:25 GMT
I have some Collarette seeds showing, Some seeds from Blyton Royal Velvet showing, the rest nothing yet.  |
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 25, 2014 17:56:40 GMT
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 27, 2014 9:55:56 GMT
More tuber from the US have just arrived....
Rung me Dad, if he isn't here before 11 o'clock, I'd be very much surprised.
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 27, 2014 11:32:36 GMT
Well Dad has been and gone! Tubers are over all much better but the significant difference is that on their website their is the option for 'pot roots' - where available. Most of the other places in the US that we have seen only send out the single 'chicken wing' piece of tuber.
Unfortunately they only sent 10 of the 11 ordered, emailed them so will wait and see.
Other than that, so long as they grow, happy with the order and would order from them in the future.
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 27, 2014 12:15:33 GMT
Fancy a bit of controversy? The class which Dad won the Best in Show and NDS silver medal last year has changed. In brief it was 3 of any type and this time it has been changed to 3 of any time of dahlia not included else where. Not going to bother with the exact phraseology. It was of all the dahlia classes the one with the biggest number of entries and the one which they had to keep increasing the size of the bench outlined for the class. It is a strong class because you could pit dec v pom v cactus v ball v star v single verse anything. At the show someone complained to the judges about Dad's entry but it really was exactly as stated in the schedule. Hence individual has influenced the committee that set the classes and the class has been altered. Apparently one of the members of the committee has now ordered in a lot of water lilly dahlias, especially with a mind to winning that class. (Not gossip but from grower himself) n.b. All judging is done by NDS qualified judge who is associated with the society, so I am not for one minute saying that any of the competitors are going to cheat. Just a case of not being happy with the rules and so went out and changed them. It so often happens that people that shout the loudest get their own way, oblivious to whether or not it is fair. This is worries me, I don't want my Dad to stop growing dahlias again. People should play by the rules and not influence people to change them because they don't like the result. When Dad told me about the grower who has specifically gone out and ordered lots of water lilly dahlias for that class, I smiled and said that I had ordered a water lilly dahlia. ()Dad said but how many have you got, you are going to need more than 1 plant. To which I replied well I only had one plant of each variety before and I was lucky last year......
p.s. Why do you think I chose to grow a water lilly this year?
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 27, 2014 13:00:54 GMT
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Post by Moonlight on Mar 27, 2014 13:02:03 GMT
  Close up of shoot on Clearview Tammy. |
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