KITSAP COUNTY DAHLIA SOCIETY

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1 KITSAP COUNTY DAHLIA SOCIETY Inside this issue: KCDS Officers 2 KCDS Board Notes 2 Meeting Schedules 2 Timing Blooms for a show Dates to Remember: June 19, 7:00 PM General Meeting July 3, 7:00 PM Board Meeting July, 17, 5PM-9PM Club Picnic at the Brownsville Pavillion July 19, 8:00 AM FNWDG Summer Workshop July 26, 9:00 AM FNWDG Judging Workshop August 2-3 KCDS Dahlia Show, Kitsap County Fairgrounds August 28-Sept ADS National Show Tacoma, WA 3 ADS Seedlings 4 Club Gardens 5 P. O. Box 502, Silverdale, WA GENERAL MEETING Trelyn Rhianon, B C DB Our speaker for the June 19th meeting will be Mary Lou Waitz, who is the horticulture and design instructor from our area for the National Federation of Garden Clubs. She will be doing a program on the elements and principles of designing and how to best show your horticulture. We look forward to seeing everyone there. Just a reminder there will be no general meeting in July. We will be having our club picnic at the Brownsville Pavillion on that date (July 17th, from 5PM-9PM). The club will furnish drinks and Drew will be grilling up hamburgers and sausage. Bring your favorite side dish and come prepared to have an evening of good food and fellowship! PORT GAMBLE TUBER SALES By Nancy and Bill Jones It is so much fun having a sale in Port Gamble. The scenery is beautiful and the residents and visitors who have enjoyed our dahlias the past two years are so appreciative of our work in providing the beautiful flowers that they enjoy so much. The members who helped with the sale had a wonderful time talking with the many people who stopped to buy our tubers. We had two successful days of selling tubers - May 31 and June 8. We were able to supply lots of dahlia information to our customers as well as advertise the KCDS and National shows. We had a good supply of tubers thanks to donations from members Fred Nelson, Steffany Mootry, Drew and Wendy Brant, and friend Laure Schmuck whom we have turned into an avid grower. Thanks also go to Pat Paulsen, Wanda Novak, Mike Lanning, Ann Davies, and Steffany who provided information to the customers and answered their many questions. Port Gamble provided us with a space to have the sale and Port Gamble employees, Mark and Eric, helped us by supplying tables and chairs and helping with set up and tear down. Special thanks to long time member, Mike Bohnstedt, who not only made a huge purchase of tubers but made a donation of $60.00 to the club. We hope to do something special with the donation and one suggestion is to sponsor some awards of his choice for the KCDS show. Mike has always been available to help with the many projects of the club, but is now having health problems that have made this impossible. 1

2 KCDS 2014 OFFICERS: President Chet Haus Vice President (programs) Madeline West Treasurer Bill Jones Recording Co- Secretaries (minutes) Kim Van Natta Allyn Arnold Debra Kurre Corresponding Co-Secretaries (newsletter) Allyn Arnold Debra Kurre Regular Board Meetings Held on the first Thursday of each Month at 7:00 PM LOCATION: All Star Lanes, Silverdale, WA Board Meeting Dates July 3, 2014 August 7, 2014 General Meetings Held on the third Thursday of each month at 7 PM EXCEPT FOR: July (Club Picnic) August (Club Show) LOCATION: Crystal Grange 2160 NE Paulson Rd Poulsbo, WA BOTH meetings are open to all. If you have an item for discussion, contact Chet Haus by the Tuesday before the meeting and he will put you on the agenda. Miss Puget Sound s Outstanding Teen, Kaile Brant, in the 2014 Armed Forces Parade in Bremerton last month. Riding with her is Aurora Brant and Mom,Wendy Brant. Congratulations Kaile! KCDS BOARD NOTES REFRESHMENT SIGN-UP June Genevieve Gardipe July Club Picnic August Club Show or call Wendy to sign up! Trustees Steffany Mootry Gary Johnson Bob Overly ADS Representative Leone Smith Federation Representative Drew Brant Contact any of these people regarding club events. Old Business: The club sold tubers at Port Gamble during the Medieval Fair. KCDS member, Mike Bohnstedt purchased 140 tubers and also donated $60.00 to the KCDS. The board will recommend at the June General Meeting that the donation be used to sponsor 3 classes of Mike s favorite dahlia types at the KCDS show. Bill and Nancy Jones will have a final sale at Port Gamble on June 8, 1-3PM. KCDS Show: The hall rental, minus set up for the tables and chairs, has been paid. The final venue at the fairgrounds has not yet been determined. The current Certificate of Insurance has been furnished to the Parks and Recreation, with the KCDS retaining a copy. Picnic: The Pavilion at the Brownsville Marina has been secured for the club s picnic on July 17th. The rental for the BBQ has been paid. New Business: Richard and Monica Tailleur donated some of their dahlia tubers to the West Sound Auction, with the proceeds going towards the $ needed to sponsor a walker in the Out of Darkness event, which is put on by the Foundation for Suicide Prevention. 2

3 Now that most of our dahlias are planted, we turn to encouraging beautiful blooms from our tubers for our August show. The article below was distributed several years ago by Dick Ambrose, and is reprinted here as a timely reference for stopping, disbranching and disbudding your dahlias. Timing Blooms for a Show By Dick Ambrose If I was timing blooms for the Kitsap show, I would count back 70 days before the show and use that as a starting time for AA and A blooms. My experience has been that these plants bloom 60 to 80 days from the time they are stopped. Since this depends on the variety and the weather, it is not very exact. Bracketing this date by stopping at different times before and after this date should give some blooms in the correct time frame. Vigorous varieties like Zorro and Alfred C. tend to be the most reliable in timing. For B and some A size dahlias, I work around a stopping date of about 55 days before the shows. For the smaller ones I do not try to time but can remove any buds that show up more than 20 before the show. If buds show up on larger sizes more than 28 days before the show, taking the center bud out and growing to one of the side buds will delay blooming about a week. For an early show like Kitsap, it is hard to have plants at the right stage for stopping. For me it seems that a well started plant from a tuber blooms earlier than a cutting, even though both are stopped at the same time. Dick Ambrose Terms Stopping: to cut off the top of a dahlia plant three, four or five sets of leaves up. The purpose is to cause the plant to put its strength into the side branches. Suggested stopping: A or AA after three sets of leaves, B after four sets of leaves, BB after five sets of leaves. Disbranching: to remove some of the new side branches on the main stem. The purpose is to cause the strength to flow into the remaining branches, which means larger blooms. Disbudding: this means to remove some of the buds of potential blooms from the side branches. The tip of the branch will have three buds and usually the two side buds are removed. The purpose is to put the strength of the plant into fewer blooms. Suggested disbudding: AA, leave the center top bud and remove the bud starts from the next three sets of leaves down; A, leave the top center bud and remove the bud starts from the next two sets of leaves down; B, leave the top center bud and remove the bud starts from the next set of leaves down; BB, leave the top center bud and remove nothing further down. Miniatures and pompons are not usually disbudded until they are cut, but may be stopped. Remember, the point to all this is to get bigger, stronger and better blooms when you want them. If some branch doesn't look right on your dahlia plant, cut if off and let the strength flow to another part of the plant. 3

4 ADS SEEDLINGS By Leone Smith So, it is time for me to make application to ADS for our ADS Seedling Bench. This is one of the ways new seedlings are evaluated for classification and introduction into commerce. Most seedlings entered on the ADS Bench have been grown for 3 to 5 years by the originator. These are evaluated and classified for Size Form and Color and are scored according to the ADS Seedling Score Sheets, and must achieve a score of 85% or higher to be eligible for listing in the ADS Classification and Handbook of Dahlias. You can read the complete rules in the 2014 Classification Book on pages 95 & 96. We are supplied with ADS Ribbons for passing entries plus a Special ADS Achievement Award Ribbon for the highest scoring entry on our ADS Bench. If you are interested in trying to grow some seedlings yourself, be sure to pay special attention to the ADS Bench and the 1-10 Section where people try showing individual blooms of newer seedlings from their gardens. It will give you an idea of the fun it is to try to come with something new, interesting & beautiful. In the same vein, in order to try growing seedlings you will want to collect seed from some of your dahlias during the summer. We can talk more about this process a little later in the season. 4

5 June 2014 May was a busy month for our club, getting our own dahlias planted, together with the club dahlias. This time of year finds one wondering if the dahlias will ever come up and have blooms by show time. Here is what our club gardens look like as of June 14th. The gardens are starting to show promise of the beautiful blooms of summer. Silverdale Post Office gardens Naval Avenue Post Office Pt. Gamble Post Office What we all are waiting for. Pt. Gamble Club Gardens 5