September Speaker’s Report

Our speaker this month was Mark Ashton with a talk on growing and showing dahlias.

Mark has given us talks before and is always passionate and knowledgeable about his subject. He started off by showing us the range of sizes of rings for various types of dahlias, eg cactus, decorative, pompom, waterlily, ball, etc. These rings dictate the maximum size of the flower heads allowed when showing dahlias.

Mark lifts his dahlias in November, washes the tubers in warm water and bleach to ensure there are no pests hiding, then takes them into the greenhouse. He leaves a short stem on each plant and hangs them upside down until January, when he puts them on a sand bench with a heating cable in and covers them with fleece. In March he gives them a little bit of water – 1 watering can is enough for 100 plants. The bottom half of the tuber is buried in soil with the top half showing. Mark can get 1000 cuttings from his tubers if he takes shorter cuttings, around 2 – 3 inches. He cleans the blades with methylated spirit in between each variety of tuber in order not to transfer any disease between plants. Once rooted they are transferred into another greenhouse. The cuttings take 12 days to root, are then potted up, potted on once more, then planted out in June.

Dahlias are very hungry plants and deplete peat free compost quickly so Mark uses peat based composts. He stops the plants twice meaning he nips out the growing tip on each plant, to encourage more blooms with smaller heads. He also removes the calyx (the leaves under the buds) to give the heads room to fill out. Mark then showed us photos of dahlias of all types he has grown, many of which he has won medals with at shows. He gave us tips on the best way to present the flowers for showing in all the various classes, and he related many stories from his years of competing at many shows all around the country.

Many thanks to Mark for an entertaining and very interesting talk on a subject that clearly gives him an enormous amount of pleasure and pride.

Our next speaker in November is Rob Evans from Pheasant Acre plants who is going to demonstrate wreath making.