TRYING TO IMPRESS. by K.E.Stock.

As I sat in front of the blank screen of my computer on a grey January afternoon I wondered how I could impress the editor of the Amateur Gardener magazine. Not that I knew the editor, indeed I didn’t even know if the editor was a man or a woman, but I had a young lady called Tamsin who worked for the magazine calling the following Monday afternoon, and she was coming to finish a story about our garden that she’d started back in September last. In my own twisted way I’d imagine that having her as a captive audience, I’d be able to write an article about a passion of mine called Dahlias, and expect her to except it at the drop of a gardener’s Wellington boot, and show it to the editor. The idea was to make a few shillings writing for a magazine to prop up our diminishing nest egg, or at least get enough to pay for my monthly Broadband expenses. How was I to know most magazines are written by a small band of in house hacks that have nearly always had a University education, and have not spent their childhood like me down a London air raid shelter avoiding the presents that Hitler and his cronies sent across the channel. Undaunted I carried on, after all I knew my subject, I should do I’ve been growing them for half my life time, but where to start was more to the point. Okay I thought, what’s the most impressive thing about the dahlia? It has to be it’s ability to out rank every other species in the garden, when it comes to colour, and also flower power, they’re much used words these days, but believe me the dahlia is a past master of that show garden `Must have’ called “Flowering Ability”’ There was another thing that it was noted for as well, and I denied I’d ever had such thoughts, it was also the beloved food of the garden slug and snail. I dismissed this as quickly as I’d thought of it, and made myself believe that Hostas were a far better candidate. Then suddenly I had this bright idea, well it was a grey day, and seemed to be getting greyer as each word revealed the plot. Maybe, as the subject was a bright and colourful immigrant from Central America I should tell the editor this, well he or she might not know this? They probably did, and it wouldn’t impress them one jot, no the idea had to be better than that for my first article to such an important person as an editor. I know, photographs to emphasize the brilliance of the flower, but what group would impress him or her the most? Should it be the giants with flowers as big as `Dinner Plates’ or the humble Pompon, named by the German’s long ago after the bobbles on a French sailor’s hat? I come to the conclusion that what ever I used would be okay as long as the photograph was bright and cheerful, and did the dahlia credit. Then it hit me like a sack of Growmore, I’ll put a couple of my home bred dahlias in the article, not only would they be home bred, but I’d pick the most impressive two, that ever graced my garden. Now when I say garden I could be accused of using the wrong word, patch would be a nearer description because since getting involved with the breeding of, as well as the growing of this magnificent flower, the back garden resembles a nursery instead of a typical English garden, but I digress.

	Charlie Dimmock.		Bournemouth Belle.		Littledown Tango.

To date a dahlia named Bournemouth Belle which was sent to America to make its fortune, and ended up winning the Lynn B Dudley Medal, and another with one of the most talked about names in gardening circles called Charlie Dimmock are the best dahlias I’ve bred so far. I did have one other accolade bestowed on me, but to tell the truth this was bought about by some one else. The John Brown medal I received from the joint committee of the National Dahlia Society, and the Royal Horticultural Society should be given back, because I didn’t have any part in the conception of the bedding variety called Littledown Tango, no it was our busy friend Mr. Bumble. All I did was to save the seed, which is as far removed from hand pollinating as breeding rabbits for the pot is to poaching. The variety that the seed come from was a cultivar called Ellen Huston which was, and still is a credit to its raiser, but who as far as I know could have also been created by Mr. Bumble.

Before I close I’d like to tell you how essential it is to place your new creations into other capable hands. At the end of July, in the year I sent Bournemouth Belle to the Big Apple I was very engrossed assessing a particular good new seedling and inadvertently forgot that where this particular batch of seedlings were growing the ground was terraced, and obviously at different levels. Such was my excitement at seeing a possible world beater (they are all of that nature when first assessed) I forgot how precariously I was placed, and before I could stop myself I went crashing down on top of five beautiful plants of, you’ve guessed it Bournemouth Belle.

Picking myself up and assessing the damage, not to me but the plants I cleared the area of broken stems and canes in dismay. These five plants never did recover sufficiently to make anything like a storable tuber as the resultant shoots produced were of a soft nature, and it was the middle of August before they started to emerge. Fortunately in America a certain John Theirmann from Wisconsin was being more helpful, and instead of destroying was creating new stock for the following year.

He went on to help Bournemouth Belle win that coveted medal two years late with all the hard work which that attains. So surely the moral in all this is “Spread what you have as far a field as you can” because you sometimes need more than your own ability to produce the goods, and preserve what you’ve created.

I would imagine what I’ve written so far would possible be enough to satisfy any editor, or at least give him or her chance to see my ability or lack of it. So I will bid this page good bye until next time, and I’ll see you at the trials or maybe in a gardening magazine one day perhaps?



 

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