THOUGHTS WHILE BENDING

June 20th 2005

I was over the road tying up the splits, bend double, and cutting off my air supply doing the first tie, when it dawned on me.  Why was I working so hard, it certainly wasn't for profit, I could knock out a couple of rooms decorating, and earn far more than I ever could growing dahlias. No it was the pleasure it gave me to produce something special. I looked around at my little plot and realised I was the only one in the World with these varieties,  I lie, Jack Gott has a few that he's assessing for me, but apart for that, this was somewhere special. Do you know why there aren't thousands of dahlia breeders? Because they won't put the hours in. I carried on this worse job of all, that first tie, funny thing was it never bothered me so much as now. I'd had a butchers at the seedling bed, and wheedled out about half a dozen seedlings, the labels all had a `Y' on them. My short hand for Yvonne, Charlie Dimmock's dad., in dahlia terms of course. I'd decided to scrap my stock of Yvonne this year. Whether she's picked up a virus from neighbouring dahlias, via flying insects, or whether it was concealed in the variety when I bought it four years ago I'll never know, but I knew I couldn't keep it now. Especially when I asked Harry Lawson if virus could be transported via pollen, and he told me it most certainly could.  Here was the evident lying on the grass, right before my eyes, all pulled up from the seedling bed. The worst of the bunch was a plant who's leaves seemed to be bunched around the stem, with know more gap between nodes than a quarter of an inch, the top ended up with a rosette of leaves resembling a green flower. Others had either of very pale leaf colour, or were struggling to keep up with their stronger cousins. My trouble has always been not to ditch weak and obviously unsuitable seedlings at the onset, too dam soft that's my trouble, but if I'm to protect the rest of each season crop, I must cull the weak ones, after all they're not people. Mind you this doesn't mean the seedlings that are slow to germinate, some of these produce the finest flowers.

The Carrion Crows that have moved into the very large Elm tree adjacent to the seedling plot this year, have stopped pulling out the labels from this years crop of seedlings thank God, here's me taking all the trouble of labelling every thing in sight, and their curiosity drives them to continually remove them, luckily most were only dumped beside the plant they were marking. Thank goodness they hadn't touched the trays of dahlias I'm growing for pot tubers, because that would have been disastrous. As it is I am letting all these flower on the break bud, to confirm they are, as written on the label. Most are for a venture I'm trying to get off the ground called the `Moon Series' if it's successful they may grace John Woolman's catalogue next year, here I go dreaming again. Anyway here are some of them.

Naturally they don't look the same as they did last year growing with no root restriction, but most can be  matched to their passport photograph, and flower shape alone does the trick. The thing that I was amazed about was, although they are growing in three and a half inch square pots, quite a few have fantastic form.

Oh I'd like to tell you of an incident that I've been puzzling over for the past few weeks, know sooner had I planted out the dahlias , than I noticed a number had developer the tell tale signs of leaf miner infection. Several had small dots about the size of a pin hole evenly distributed on the surface of their leaves, and some had the first signs of the little caterpillar's tunnels, I sprayed immediately to stop the infection getting any bigger, but try as I might I could not find the host plant, there's always a host plant for such infections. I looked over neighbouring gardens, and although the people around me had no regular spray programme, I couldn't see any weeds displaying the evidence of this little `perisher' That was until I notice a large  `Milk Thistle growing in between two conifers in the front garden to my left. I photographed the culprit and pinned the evidence to the front of my side way door, and catalogued it for your interest.

June 25th 2005

This years seedlings are beginning to produce their break bud flowers, and although  courser than the next set that the plant produces, they are good enough to access the potential of the new variety. Meanwhile in the greenhouse buds are beginning to form on the breeders, Jack Gott has a major plan this year, perhaps I shouldn't tell you or you'll all want to try and emulate him, but that is the nature of breeding, what ever you do in your own breeding programme is perfectly legal. Anyway let you into the secret, he is trying to produce a Collerette with dark foliage, I imagine this has been tried before by numerous breeders, but as yet we haven't a dark leaved Collerette. Needless to say if I produce one before Jack, I'll split it with him, and we'll share the spoils. Luck is the major factor in breeding, don't get me wrong, you have to have the right varieties coming into flower at just the right time to perform the operation, so luck was on my side when Moon fire was at just the right stage to except the pollen from Easter Sunday, time will tell if the pollination was successful, and if the two varieties were compatible.

I am still waiting for the dwarfing agent from my Professor friend, meanwhile I am letting the odd stem elongate to form a bud, and pinching the remaining to reduce the petal count. I am assured by my mentor Harry Lawson that this alone will reduce the number of petals per flower, the other factor is to starve the plants. This I find hard to do, but I am certainly willing to try it out, knowing for sure that a starved plant will do it's darnedest to reproduce.

I've found out the reason why plants from a nursery that I bought in for breeding stock, had a hard time getting established, the worse two were de-potted, and on examining, I found them to have a restrictive band of rubber like substance holding the compost they were rooted in together. As far as I could tell this stopped the roots from spreading into the surrounding new potting compost, that I'd used to pot them on. Whether it was to dry when I  re-potted them, or the compost that the old roots were placed on was not to their liking I can't say, but they weren't going to  make it, in their present state. I re-rooted all but two of them, took off the band on two more and re-potted, and another is suspended above a very weak solution of `Baby Bio' that I made up, and placed in a two pound jam jar, this seems to be helping it to produce new roots from the rotted roots that I found on de-potting. Later shifted the plant to a pot filled with silver sand and soaked it in a weak solution of Baby Bio. 

July 2nd: The second of two reasonable seedling where photographed today, both were Small Water Lily Flowered.

You can see the parents in these two, the first one was a cross using Ken's Rarity as the seed parent and Charlie Dimmock, the second was Lismore Canary x Charlie Dimmock. Best of it is, you can also see Yvonne in the second one as well, just like our cousin Rita had the same chin as her grandfather.

The names on the new varieties this year are only thought up on the quick because I got in such a muddle with numbers and dates last year, but of course if they do alright after a couple of years trial, I could still use these temporary names, but one thing I must do is put the date on the photographic files. Thus, amyrose28june05 and chineselantern2july05.

July 5th 2005. Had confirmation today that I'm going to loose the use of the land over the road, 2005 is going to be my last season. I think this means goodbye to the lawn in the back garden, Irene's not going to like it, but it will save me wasting time cutting it for one thing, and give me more room to grow the new seedlings. Grass should be reserved for sport, when you don't sit on it, and especially when you're seventy four years young, and have got an absorbing hobby like dahlia breeding. I was always a bit wary of the new stuff over the road, I had no means of locking the gate you see, and that Elm tree is getting bigger a bigger, and the winds are getting stronger and stronger. God what a start to July, strong winds and rain, but thank goodness it is a little cooler for our charges.

July 7th 2005: Had my daughters round for lunch yesterday, I always enjoy the banter between them and their mother, I was a bit put out however when I was out voted three to one regards digging up the back lawn, I think the main reason was they all thought I was going to have a heart attack accomplishing it, but the disappointment became insignificant on hearing seven bombs had gone off in the capital a stones throw from where we were raised, we send our sincere condolences to the victims and their families.

July 9th 2005: I've just come back from over the road, you know where I grow my seedlings, and looking at the various forms I have, convinces me that as I used a variety called Karma Naomi, I have a range of varieties of most groups, I'm certain this is the reason, because every other year since crossing by hand, the varieties have always been as expected. Now I know that the Verwer Brother's policy is to use open pollination, least that is what I was told by Aad Verwer, so naturally this is why some of this years crosses reflect this, but only with the varieties crossed with Karma Naomi,  I suppose it has made life interesting for me, but hardly scientific. One or two of the giants seem quite impressive, but as they are in the bud form anything can happen until the blooms have matured. It is a different story with my cactus and semi-cactus seedlings, although the box containing the germinated seedling was knocked off the staging, do you remember, now that they're flowering I know exactly where they are, and some pleasant flowers are developing, let you see a few as soon as they mature. Pleased to say the cross I made using Moon fire and Easter Sunday was successful, well when I say successful I really mean they were compatible, this means with luck I'll be able to reverse the cross, in case this way round produces a better flower.  Easter Sunday may be more dominant this way round, and then we'll get our dark leaved Collerette, exciting isn't it?

July 21st: After two weeks in a sunny greenhouse quite a few of the seed pods from a number of the earlier crosses have turn a golden brown. So I thought I'd place them in pound jam jars that had been washed and sterilized with the stuff you sterilize babies bottles in. I half filled them with water that had been standing all day, and put three drips of the sterilizing liquid in each. After giving it a good stir I cut  the seed pods from the mother parent with six inches of stem, and placed them into the jam jars on one of the top shelves of the greenhouse, with the label containing the names of the parents firmly attached, seed parent first. Talking of mother parents, most times as I've said in the past, I try and use the pollen parent (Father parent) after using it's pollen, as a mother parent. Are you with me? Just as soon as the pollen is gone from the pollen parent, the stigmas open wide and are ready to receive pollen from another male parent. Got it? Time for more flowers I think, to stop you getting bored.

	Mexico Max.		Mayan Mood. (Double Orchid)
	Monet Marvel.		Mexico Magic.
	Tiger Tim.		Monet Corona.
	Mister Buttercup.		Monet Link.
	For the Moon Series. (Perhaps)		Lady Love.

There is so much to do with seedlings in this yearly report that I think it has to go in a separate article, that way I can explain the theory behind the breeding technique.

Look for `MAGIC GARDEN' on my home page.

1st August: This week started as last finished, rain and more rain, typical English weather, not that I'm complaining, but the lawn wants cutting, and I was hoping to remove some of the bottom leaves from the plants growing in the back garden. The reason being, while doing the edge of the lawn last week in a kneeling position, I noticed the beginnings of that debilitating dahlia disease `Dahlia Smut' I had it quite bad in the shady border adjacent to the garage last year, you know what a strong grower Reginal Keene is, well the plants were stopped in their tracks, and after the first flush they settle for a well earned rest, but that was last year.

I bought the systemic fungicide last Friday and intended to get the job done over the week-end, but what with visitors it's still to do.

	Dahlia Smut before the holes appear.		Dahlia Smut highlighted by a cloudy sky, holes eaten through.

Wednesday 3rd August: Managed to get the worst infected leaves off the dahlias, and I've given them all a good fungicide drench, the easiest way is to fill up an old plastic dustbin, and adding the concentrate, I know it holds fourteen gallons so it isn't hard to gauge, but it would have been easier if we'd have retained our old liquid measurement, gallons, quarts, and pints. I'll have to find out how I can eradicate this disease from the back garden, the front is clear, probably because it isn't so enclosed, fungal diseases thrive in close conditions. I noticed on some of Jack Gott's photographs he also had dahlia smut last year, and he also packs them in. I'll look on the Internet for a cure, I think it will mean me sterilize the back garden soil at the end of the season, and probably again before planting next year.

Half an hour later: Or it could have been an hour, time goes so fast when you're having fun. Would you believe it not a sausage, over fifteen sites on dahlia diseases and not one mentioned `Dahlia Smut' Even the NDS didn't have it listed, I'm certain that's what it's called. I'm not giving up I'll try again.

Five minutes later: `ere listen up, guess who knows about `Dahlia Smut' ? I should have known, Wayne Holland, the man's a mine of information, I wish I'd have known him when he was in his heyday of dahlia breeding, here's me learning stuff I wouldn't have dreamt of a few years back, and he's taken up growing grapes. Take a gander at what he says by entering his site via my home or link page, I knew I'd seen it somewhere.

Since blurting out the words above I've found out Wayne has problems regards his wife's health. I know you will all wish him and is wife every kind thought, and hope their lives will return to normal soon.

I'm sorry I haven't kept up with my monthly account of this month, as it has been such a very busy month of continual disbudding, consequently this month is almost over.

August 24th: As I sit in front of this computer screen the weather has done it's worse, strong wind and rain have dashed my hopes of making my name at this years National Dahlia Show. With a week to go blooms at just the right stage have been knocked sideways with the constant battering from a strong Westerly winds that are hitting the fence behind a double row of mainly small and miniature decorative and ball flowered dahlias. It rebounds even harder, whipping them continually from side to side. Several stems have been forced to curve earthwards, with the weight of flowers over come with water, and more than a handful  have snapped the stems holding them. Fortunately apart from the front garden which I haven't dared look at since the storm started, the rest of the plants in the back garden are relatively safe. Sounds like a gripe, and that is exactly what it is, after all many months went into these blooms, perhaps a case for covers, but then covers have their down side. All I hope is that I have enough blooms to warrant the trip to Shelton Mallet, I know Irene will think it strange if we stay over night after taking no blooms, but then if I have no blooms shall travel on show day, I owe it to Jack to see him at the National, so that's that.

The best part of this year has been the new seedlings, at seventy four years young I must organise the way I let the World get to know them, one thing is certain they must be assessed for more than one year, Rome wasn't built in a day, you can't run before you can walk, and dahlias need a settling down period. Trouble is when you're getting on you start getting a bit panicky in case the varieties you produce don't get a life. Of the varieties I've produced, the best compare favourable with the standard varieties, not the best mind you, like Jomanda's and Kiwi Gloria. S`funny, I never thought I would ever say that a bee could produce a flower as wonderful as the last named variety, this year those in my front garden have been magnificent. Let's put it down to the way a gentleman named Eddie Darrant organized them.

With about thirty six new seedlings good enough to give a second chance and at least fourteen that I'm going to grow for their third year I will have no room for any other varieties than my own in the garden. I hadn't thought my garden would have been taken over by my own stock so quickly, but loosing my `Magic garden' or rather transferring where I have my `Magic Garden' has made assessment space tight. No way can I reduce plant spacing, and I definitely can't reduce the number I grow of each, I guess four of one variety is about the least you can grow to get a vase of five, probably six would be better, after all most growers growing for Championships these days grow twenty, some thirty of each.  The only thing is with more varieties for assessment there are more chances of some varieties hitting the various show dates. Let's hope the weather forecast tonight tells us the worse is over, and fine weather is on the cards, at least until I've cut the remains of what was a favourable crop of show-able miniature ball and decorative flowers. Best of it is it is now six o'clock, the wind has eased, the rain has stopped and the garden is in a shambles.

	My Sweet Larraine before the storm.		The same variety after a days wind and rain.

	The miniatures and small decorative and balls before the storm.		When the wind and rain had stopped.

But then there is always another year next year.

August 29th: Just days before the National everything's changing, what was to be the best set has gone over, and varieties I was so sure wouldn't make it, have pushed on, with the return of this Spanish weather. Can't say as a grower I like it so hot, but it's a long Winter when it starts. I've taken a few cuttings of what I've called Irene's Jomanda, as I said exactly the same as Jomanda except colour. Jack recons it'll be in demand, as both Jomanda, and it's little sister's Mary's Jomanda are two of the very best show varieties.

I've managed to build a false floor that fits over the back seat of the car when it's folded down. Unfortunately in the newer Ford Fiesta some joker thought it would be a good idea to have the seat slope when folded. Must have been the same bloke who made the side mirrors a fixture. Can't see Sweet Killarney making anything other than the bin, what a pity such a lovely name wasted, that'll teach me to be so cocksure, and to hasty to register.

Do you wanna `ave a laugh? I'm practically certain my Jomanda sport is My sweet Larraine, now it's developing into a bloom it is looking more and more like the said variety, I'll have to email both David Hall and Jack Gott before they spread false information. As more and more buds came into colour it dawned on me most of the plant was of the same colour. I searched through the many branches, all mine have been stopped twice, and the odd Jomanda bloom was coming from an adjacent plant. Also on the other side of the row, where I thought I had another sported plant, that plant was of a slightly darker shade, and was obviously Mrs. Jones. There is one satisfying fact that derives from my stupidity, both varieties have obviously got good enough form to warrant mistaking they were a sport from that fantastic variety Jomanda. I suppose extra work and extra years do not go together, add excitable nature and you're completely lost. I have several misplaced plants, that have had to have labels changed this year. Think I better send those emails.

August 31st: Spent the morning up till eleven thirty cutting for the National, fortunately it was overcast although humid. Everything was placed in deep water, a couple of limp stems were caned, and after three hours were a whole lot better, needless to say I put back the splint over night. My competitors pass came this morning, and not a minute to soon. As I'm staging tomorrow I made enquires at a number of hotels for one night B & B, the cheapest I could get for a double room was £90. The World's gone crazy, when we first come to Bournemouth from the `Smoke' we gave `em a full English breakfast for ten and six in old money, that's equivalent to 55 pence. I guess it's me being out of touch with the World, know wonder they kept coming back.

The varieties I'm happy with are as follows; Badger Twinkle from an American friend in Wisconsin, a nice miniature cactus which stands out in a crowd. Culdrose a miniature decorative which lost a bit of colour in the last few days, due to the 26 plus centigrade temperatures. Sweet Charity small water lily flowered in bright scarlet, this ones gonna create a storm, looks like Taratahi Ruby but if you saw it growing in my garden you would know it wasn't. Jack says it doesn't go to sleep at night like so many of the SWL's, I'll have to go out and have a peep. One variety that I haven't got a even set of is Mrs. Jones, the best blooms were grown on two plants that were split tubers, and the other three were grown on plants from cuttings, that weren't double stopped. I'm convinced that plants that are double stopped have a smaller amount of petals. I might be wrong but I know when we needed to get refinement in a chrysanthemum we'd plump for a second crown bud. The rest of the eleven varieties are just to make up the numbers, these are the tale end of the first flush. After all if only the winners were shown there would be no show, the also runs, make up the bulk of the show God bless `em. I'll call it a day now, promised to give Jack a ring, he cuts tomorrow. If any one who reads my web site want to make their self known to me at the National, my names Ken Stock, and I'm very approachable.

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