Hello Beautiful, Goodbye Stakes!

 An update from my little dahlia garden:
Miss Delilah was my first bloom of the season on July 9th.  She usually wins the earliest bloom in my garden and is always such a delight to see her darling face. 

I'm not a big fan of tying dahlias to stakes so I am trying a new method this year.  I bought Heavy Duty Professional tomato cages from Burpee on-line and some heavy duty, 10 inch tent stakes from Amazon.   Once in the ground the cages are about 3 feet tall so I am hoping they will do the trick with no tying!   If they are not tall enough I can order extensions that attach to the top.   I am also hoping the tent stakes will keep the cages and plants in the ground when we have a wind storm.   This is another gardening experiment and I will let you know how they worked at the end of the season.  

 The Utah Dahlia Society demo garden is doing well. 

  We expect to see a Miss Delilah bloom by next Tuesday.  BTW, demo garden work days are set for Tuesday mornings at 9:00 am.  Come and help if you would like or just drop by to say hello.  We would love to see you.

Spring 2014

Spring is always a busy time for gardeners especially when one of your passions is dahlias.   We kicked off the 2014 dahlia season with our member tuber sale on April 25th.  We had great participation from our members and a successful community sale on April 26th.

Lumpy, Mark, Megan, Karen and Steve prepping the Demo Garden.  May 14, 2014


Thanks to Bill Hughes for the following photos.  He captured our Demo garden work day that was held on Friday May 16.   Many hands made short work of planting our garden for 2014.

 Cheri and Jan

 Dick

 Karen

 Megan

 Stephan

 Best ever photo of Mark Hurst

 Karen

 Cheri and Carrie

Lumpy

        Our last tuber sale of the season on May 17th at Sugarhouse Garden Center.

 Our June meeting was held on the 18th at Karen's home. 

 Cheri did a wonderful presentation of how to sharpen our tools and keep them in shape.

 Our youngest members: Laelia, Iris and Violet

 We also celebrated Mark's 80th Birthday!

 Happy Birthday Mark!!!  

Thank you for all you do for the Utah Dahlia Society.

Tuber Time!

Spring in Utah has arrived....for now. 

 We all know it could and probably will snow again but it is time to start thinking about our tubers.   They have been in storage all winter and it is finally time to get them ready to plant in May.

Our first meeting of the year was on Wednesday, March 19.  We divided our demo garden tubers.  It was fantastic that we had so many members help that we got the job done in a hurry.  
Thanks to Spence for storing them.

Our next meeting will be on 

Friday, April 25th at 6:00 pm.  

We will prepare the tubers for sale and follow up with our Members Only sale the same evening.   

The public sale will be on

 Saturday, April 26th
from 9:00 am until 2:00 pm 
or until tubers are gone.  

Both sales will be held at 

the Sugarhouse Garden Center,
1620 east 2100 south. 

Hope to see you there!

Awards Banquet / Demo Garden Wrap Up

Our annual Awards Dinner was held on October 16, 2013 

at the Granger Christian Church.

It was fun to get together to celebrate the end of a great dahlia season.

 Vanetta with Mark 

 Our buffet was from Joe Morely BBQ.  

It is a favorite with our group.

 Ryan with Baby Iris

 The Taylors

 Cheri with Bill and Barbara

 Elizabeth and Jan with husbands Alan and David

 Ryan and Julie get kudos for traveling from Logan with their darling girls.

Bill and Barbara receive their award from Megan and Mark.

Demo Garden Wrap Up

We cut down the plants and stored the stakes on November 9, 2013.  We had lots of help so it took less than 90 minutes to get it done.  
Thanks to everyone that helped!

Mark, Megan, Cheri, Sandy and Karen dug the tubers on November 20, 2013.  Because we have lost so many tubers the last two years Spence came to the rescue.  We simply dug and washed the clumps of tubers and Megan delivered them to Spence.  He did the rest by packing them in bags and storing them in his root cellar.  

We will divide the tubers next spring in time for our tuber sale.  It is always good to mix things up and try new things.  We have our fingers crossed for a good outcome.

Happy Holidays Everyone! 

Can't wait to see you next Spring!

Garden Tour - Dick and Marilyn Taylor

It is a little sad to post the last of my Garden Tour photos for the season.  But on the bright side it brings back memories of a lovely day that Megan and I spent going from one Utah Dahlia Society member's garden to the next.

 We were in the area of Dick and Marilyn's garden but knew they were not home and on another one of their grand adventures.  We decided to go anyway and felt totally welcome when we encountered this sign in their front yard.

 So, "Come and Enjoy" we did!

 This was a very creative way to incorporate the swing set that their children once enjoyed.  Now, the dahlias use it for support.  Also, notice that the dahlias in this area are planted in lovely soil contained in 17" X 17" pots.   The gravel that made the "playground" now is the walk way between the rows of buried pots that contain the dahlias.  The pot idea saved all the work required to remove the gravel to get to the soil underneath.

 Dick and Marilyn's dahlias invite you 

to look behind the hedge.

 The little red shed belongs to the Taylor's neighbor. 
 It provides such a nice background for the rows of dahlias that is decorated with multiple bird houses.

 Thanks to Dick and Marilyn for inviting everyone to enjoy their beautiful garden. 

 I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did.

Watch for the last post of the year. 

 Bill took some photos of our Awards Dinner that I'm sure will be great.