FLUKES ARE FOR THE BEES

WANDA’S CAPELLA.

KENORA SUNSET.

BRACKEN BALLERINA.

HY SUNTAN.

JOMANDA.

KENORA JUBILEE.

REGINALD KEENE.

TARATAHI RUBY.

I will endeavour to keep this article as straightforward as I can. I am of the generation who spent their childhood, avoiding `Hitler’ being eight when World War 2 started, and fourteen when it ended. So although I had an adequate education I never grasped every aspect of the lessons I was taught. Now aged seventy-two I wish I had more talent to help me write what’s in my head, so if I go off half cocked at times bear with me, I am a novice at this fascinating game of dahlia breeding. Before I start I’d like to thanks everyone I’ve come in contact with on the Internet, and elsewhere, for their help in the articles they’ve written. Of course the computer’s been helping me; thank God for its spell check facility although I think my use of it is causing it to become neurotic. I’ve always had a lot to say and with the world growing smaller with the help of the Internet I hope to join in the conversation, and add words to my computer’s dictionary that it would never have known without my help. To my mind along with the automobile, the computer is the best and worse thing ever invented. To think I can write this article and it can be read all over the world is fascinating. That’s providing they speak English of course, because although most people in our country, are decent kind and considerate, the majority have never troubled to master another language. So if by writing this short article it gives just one person the incentive to try their hand at breeding dahlias that have never graced this wonderful world before, I’ll be very happy, especially if they are world-beaters, like the ones below.

I must say since trying my hand at breeding, it has made me critical of every cultivar I grow in the garden. When the idea of opening the garden to the public come about, all I was content in doing was producing as much colour as possible, but now I’m looking for form as well as colour. Another thing that changed my mind about growing better flowers was born; when a visitor to one of our open week ends mention `Cos, they wouldn’t win prizes’ of course he was right, because they were grown for the over all effect in the garden, but it stuck in my throat, and anyone coming to the garden now, will see a vast improvement in the quality of varieties that I grow. Although the gentleman that encouraged me to up the anti doesn’t know me, I know him; he lives a couple of roads away, and is, or was, a National Dahlia Society judge. I found him in the 1999 National Dahlia Society’s Classified Directory, and I’m practically certain his name is B J Madders, know wonder he had to tell me, if you every read this article Mr. Madders please come back and see the difference.