That Happet Blue eyes is lovely. I have several Wh/Pur plants near each other this year. HH Starburst, Enchantress, Who Done It, Kyli-Bug, Bradley Aaron & Sharkey. Its definitely my favorite area in the garden.
PNWGal Aug 12, 2015 10:44 PM PDT
Name: Linda Portland OR, zone 8b
Some more photos from Tacoma #34 has a lot of flower on a very short plant ditto for #18 funny next to #17, a tall girl. Similar colors & tousled form, but a different effect. #39
#39, #40
#40
PNWGal Aug 12, 2015 11:00 PM PDT
Name: Linda Portland OR, zone 8b
#43
#44 is truly amazing - a laciniated incurved cactus. A bit wilted in the heat of the warm midday sun
#45
#50 appeared to have two different varieties, both pretty nice. Mixups happen sometimes, possibly the grower sent both accidentally, sometimes there is a tuber left in the soil from last year that takes the spot.
We always seem to have a grower who mixes their tubers, LOL...or one of the 3 reverts to something else. You sure picked out some of my favorites here with your photos, LInda! Yesterday you posted #10 and I have liked that one from the start. #44 and 45 are among my favorites and ones I would grow. Quite a few in that color range this year at the garden. The big pink and cream laciniated one was spectacular last week.,,,it recovered well from the 98 degrees of the week before.
I am so glad you got pics. We were working as fast as we could in very high humidity on Monday so we took our break time in the shade and I didn't do any photographing. I had taken 2 extra helpers with me, my son and one of our Wwoofers, so between supervising and teaching them and doing my work I was pretty darned busy!
PNWGal Aug 13, 2015 10:29 AM PDT
Name: Linda Portland OR, zone 8b
Here are a few more. I evidently didn't get pictures of as many as I would have liked - I keep thinking "whaddya mean, I didn't get a shot of that one?" But then half the reason I went was to take notes and pictures of how the garden was set up and maintained, so we can keep improving our TG. It's easy to see why yours is the one we all look up to. #14, #15
#30, and look at all the flowers on that gold one in the background! I don't seem to have a closer photo of that one. #30 has nice depth
#52
#60 seemed like each flower would keep opening up forever, with perfectly arranged petals
#58
#55 has crazy long stems
PNWGal Aug 13, 2015 11:35 AM PDT
Name: Linda Portland OR, zone 8b
Here are a few shots other than of the flowers. At the entry to the garden is this sign with descriptions and examples of all the forms
The beds are 4' across, with 2 rows of dahlias and 3 rows of drip hose. The plants are spaced with 2' between the rows and 2' between the plants in the rows, so they have plenty of room to develop. The beds run NW-SE so all sides get sun. There are lots of big trees around, but the close ones are all to the north, shading the benches but not the garden. Nice.
The stakes are steel T-posts, about 45" high (5' posts?)
The plants have been topped early and branch low, with very sturdy attachments. There is a small tag with each entry giving the approximate size of the flowers, so the volunteers know how many lateral branches to leave and how far to disbud the stems. We have already started doing this and it really speeds up the work.
The lower leaves have been removed, for better air circulation and a clean appearance.
The plants are sturdy enough not to need much tying. They have been tied once when young, and then one or two additional ties have been made on the taller plants. The twine is tied to the post and then around the whole plant or a large section. They have used thin natural sisal twine, and it is inconspicuous enough that I had a hard time taking pictures of it! Our plants are watered overhead with the rest of the Swan Island gardens, instead of with drip irrigation, so we need more support, especially for the big flowers.
Ken Walton is the plant tie-er upper of choice at our garden. He spends a lot of time down on his knees (Something that Marilyn and I have trouble doing)...I am definitely a Deadheader and Disbudder. Don Filand does that also and Don and Ken get the weeds out that have managed to grow in spite of our vigilance. There is purslane that wants really badly to take over our beds. Marilyn is often busy with paperwork and reports, and overseeing the rest of us.
I do think we make a pretty good team.
mandolls Aug 14, 2015 6:28 PM PDT
Name: Geof WI
Linda - thanks again for the photos. Its great to see the close ups of how everything is managed.
I never have that many strong laterals coming from the bottom of the plant, probably a combination of my shady-ish yard and whether and when I top them.
teddahlia Aug 18, 2015 1:42 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
I have been adding pictures of the Canby Trial Garden to my Flickr page:
Yes, I think it is, Linda. We need to build a cage around that one!
I am going to look for your #25 and see if we have it here and what it is doing with our temperatures about 10 degrees lower then yours. I love ones that make color changes like this. Right now Penhll Dark Monarch is one of my favorites but we will see how it holds up to cutting today. It did'nt last week but possibly it had a crack at the attachment place or something so I will try it again.
I like the wild wavy petals on your #4!
honnat Aug 21, 2015 1:25 PM PDT
St. Paul, MN
Really love the #4. It's like a red Woodland's Wildthing. I would like to see it classed as informal decorative; but my guess is that it'll go Semi-Cactus.
teddahlia Aug 23, 2015 2:54 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
I went to the Tacoma Trial Garden and took pictures of nearly all of the 60 entries. I will edit them and create an album on Flickr. This will be done in a couple of days.
OH good, Ted! I will leave my camera home tomorrow then. I need to start figuring out the ones that I dearly love enough to try to obtain for next year. I saw some with Connells name on them at the shows, and I think somehow that means they may also be Bloomquist ones, since he grows them for MR Bloomquist. A couple of my favorites were among the ones under Connell's name as undessimated seedlings.
teddahlia Aug 24, 2015 12:36 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
I have loaded 59 pictures of the Tacoma Trial Garden. There were 60 entries and I did not get number 22. A few of them are out of focus or overexposed but most came out pretty good. I do not know the names of them except for the Hollyhill entries and it is not yet time to reveal them.
Be sure to click on the pictures to make them larger. I sized them all to 14 inches wide. It took a few hours to edit the pictures and load them onto Flickr.
I am starting to make my selections for next season should they become available. Tomorrow there is an invitation out to join the Evergreen Dahlia Club in a picnic in the test garden. I am going by myself and taking my camera and assembling my wish list Marilyn W and I had a nice chat as we worked thre today. We found that quite a few of the ones that would be good cut flowers for me actually she would like for "Show Flowers" too. The ones that fade badly in the sun neither of us wants, nor the ones with nasty foliage. I can use flowers that are more shallow then show flowers as long as they meet other criteria. We both like long stems. And I am constantly looking at ones that have color blends that can draw in others into a mixed bouquet.
I don't see as many single flowers this year that I like, though I do like the Boley's Sandia Brocade which I am pretty sure is in our test garden.
honnat Aug 24, 2015 9:26 PM PDT
St. Paul, MN
Thanks for posting those!
I love number 8 and 38. How big is #11? Looks full and big.
teddahlia Aug 24, 2015 10:10 PM PDT
Name: Ted Oregon We enjoy breeding new dahlias!
I only saw these flowers for few seconds as I snapped the picture. I believe #11 was B sized. It had some fading on the back petals. It may have been better to take at least three pictures of each flower: "Face" shot, side shot and shot of the bush. I was there on a limited schedule and spent about 30-40 minutes taking the pictures. I did more picture taking than evaluating the entries. Some of them look really good in the pictures but I cannot remember what they looked like on the bush. I know I liked #24 as it is a "flamingo" pink. #39 has good form and pleasing colors. #37 was a nice shade of pink and a nice flower. All the anenomes were very nice. The giant #4 was only half open. #53 looked good there. The pom #24 was nice. #59 was a cute pink and white bicolor that did not photo well. I have not talked about Hollyhill entries and 4 of the 5 looked good there. #56 looked lousy there but looked great on the ADS bench at the show. Maybe they picked the good flowers for the show(doubtful).
I'm planning to take my camera over to the Pt Defiance (Tacoma) Test Garden this afternoon. Any particular flowers that anyone wants more shots of? Give me the # from previous posts, tell me what you want to see in particular and I will do my best. For myself I am going to make my "Wish List".
#34 has a lot of flower on a very short plant
ditto for #18
funny next to #17, a tall girl. Similar colors & tousled form, but a different effect.
#39
#39, #40
#40
#43
#44 is truly amazing - a laciniated incurved cactus. A bit wilted in the heat of the warm midday sun
#45
#50 appeared to have two different varieties, both pretty nice. Mixups happen sometimes, possibly the grower sent both accidentally, sometimes there is a tuber left in the soil from last year that takes the spot.
#14, #15
#30, and look at all the flowers on that gold one in the background! I don't seem to have a closer photo of that one.
#30 has nice depth
#52
#60 seemed like each flower would keep opening up forever, with perfectly arranged petals
#58
#55 has crazy long stems
At the entry to the garden is this sign with descriptions and examples of all the forms
The beds are 4' across, with 2 rows of dahlias and 3 rows of drip hose. The plants are spaced with 2' between the rows and 2' between the plants in the rows, so they have plenty of room to develop. The beds run NW-SE so all sides get sun. There are lots of big trees around, but the close ones are all to the north, shading the benches but not the garden. Nice.
The stakes are steel T-posts, about 45" high (5' posts?)
The plants have been topped early and branch low, with very sturdy attachments. There is a small tag with each entry giving the approximate size of the flowers, so the volunteers know how many lateral branches to leave and how far to disbud the stems. We have already started doing this and it really speeds up the work.
The lower leaves have been removed, for better air circulation and a clean appearance.
The plants are sturdy enough not to need much tying. They have been tied once when young, and then one or two additional ties have been made on the taller plants. The twine is tied to the post and then around the whole plant or a large section. They have used thin natural sisal twine, and it is inconspicuous enough that I had a hard time taking pictures of it! Our plants are watered overhead with the rest of the Swan Island gardens, instead of with drip irrigation, so we need more support, especially for the big flowers.
TG-04A with the Swan Island Show Garden in the background
TG-04A
TG-08
TG-09
TG-14
TG-25 has the most amazing colors, shades of coral on the faces and rose on the backs of the petals.
TG-01 our only AA is starting to open its first bloom. I think this is the same as the very big one that keeps getting picked at Tacoma.
Marilyn W and I had a nice chat as we worked thre today. We found that quite a few of the ones that would be good cut flowers for me actually she would like for "Show Flowers" too. The ones that fade badly in the sun neither of us wants, nor the ones with nasty foliage. I can use flowers that are more shallow then show flowers as long as they meet other criteria. We both like long stems. And I am constantly looking at ones that have color blends that can draw in others into a mixed bouquet.