James “Bud” Moore isn’t worried. Although the lengthy spring and summer showers dampened the hopes for some of his dahlias, he’ll still enter 30 to 40 contenders in the Southtown Dahlia Club’s 59th Annual Flower Show Aug.31-Sept. 1.
“I used to bring 100 to 150 entries, but as you get older, it’s a lot of work,” said the Midlothian resident, who has been growing dahlias for 47 years. His flowers will join about 2,000 other colorful blossoms ranging in size from as small as a button to as large as a dinner plate.
Moore is an experienced gardener with “a cedar chest full of ribbons and a basement filled with flower show trophies and medals,” he said. His passion began in 1949, when he received 25 plants from a fellow gardener. That summer he brought eight of the best blossoms to enter in the Garfield Park Conservatory flower show.
“I walked in and saw them setting up,” he said. “After looking at the entries, I walked out and threw my flowers in the car.”
Luckily, that fellow gardener made him return to the 1949 show. He was hooked when he won a trophy at the show for a dark red flower, Cherokee Brave.
“When I first saw those big blooms, I knew I wanted to grow them,” Moore said. “When you get a flower that’s 12 to 16 inches in diameter, well, it’s eye-catching.”
Other club members confirm Moore’s feelings. “The first time I saw a dahlia was at Chicago’s Marquette Park flower show in 1967,” said club president George Rebersky of Palos Hills. “Seeing all those flowers was like being hit with a baseball bat. It just knocks you over.”
Rebersky, who grows more than 200 dahlias in a special 50-square-foot “cloth house” (much like a chain-link fence with a lid, all covered with black cloth), will bring about 100 blooms to enter in the show.
“Each year the president gets to pick a flower show category called President’s Choice,” he said. Rebersky chose three categories this year, the white Walter Hardisty, red Zoro and yellow Inland Dynasty.
“Whoever has the best one will receive a silver medal. If someone wins with all three, they’ll get three silver medals and $50,” Rebersky explained.
Judging, which will take place before the doors open at noon on Aug. 31, is not an easy job, explained Moore, who has been a flower show judge for 35 years. He said that dahlias are divided into four categories: formal decorative (flowers with flat petals), informal decorative (petals have a quarter-twist), semi-cactus (half-twist) and cactus (completely twisted). Within each of those categories, there are 15 color classes.
Moore said each blossom could earn up to 100 points based on distinctiveness, color, form, substance, size, stem, foliage and condition of bloom.
So that amateur gardeners need not compete with professionals, there are six entry classes. “This prevents a gardener who grows only 30 plants from having to compete against a nurseryman who may have thousands of blossoms from which to choose,” Moore explained.
Of the competition, Rebersky said, “When you have a flower that looks so good that you could almost eat it, you might get knocked right off your pedestal because someone comes along with one that’s even better. But you eventually get a chance to win because there are so many categories to enter.”
Rebersky said that die-hard dahlia growers will bring blossoms from their gardens in Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois. “Some cut the flowers one or two days early and let them slowly open in buckets of water,” he explained.
Retired Chicago police officer Corney Morgan of Palos Heights has been growing dahlias for several years. “It’s just a riot of color–that’s what got me. I saw the Southtown Dahlia Club’s show years ago at Ford City (shopping center in Chicago), and I couldn’t believe how much color and beauty there was,” he said. “I grow about 120 plants, with 75 different varieties.”
Although Morgan was teased by fellow police officers for his horticultural endeavors, he said the hobby’s competitive nature seems to attract a lot of men, and at the Illinois State Fair three years ago, Morgan had the last laugh when he won a trophy for the largest dahlia. “It was a 14.3-inch red flower called Creve Coeur,” he said.
Moore, Rebersky and Morgan also breed new dahlia varieties by crossing pollen from different plants. Moore is especially proud of his hybrids.
“I named one for Sen. (Everett) Dirksen (of Illinois). He was giving a speech at Palos Country Club in 1961,” he said. “Afterwards, he delayed a dinner held in his honor while he went through a bucket of my cut flowers.”
After Dirksen picked an 8-inch semi-cactus yellow as his namesake, Moore asked him why he couldn’t champion the dahlia instead of the marigold. “I just think it’s a nice little flower,” Dirksen replied.
Rebersky named three cultivars after his grandchildren. “You have to raise the new plant for three years,” he said. “In the fourth year, the plant goes to a special trial garden and if it makes it, you get a certificate.”
From there new varieties find their way into catalogs.
Morgan is always looking for something unusual to satisfy his desire for dahlias. “Bud Moore . . . got me started,” he said. Moore admits that he gets many new dahlias from around the world and gives them to Morgan and Rebersky to “keep them interested.”
“I’m growing several new ones this year,” Morgan said. “There’s Belle of the Ball and there’s Penhill Moonrise from South Africa, which is supposed to have a 14-inch bloom.”
Many of Morgan’s blossoms are sheltered from the hot sun and heavy rains under umbrellas. He pinches off all but a few, which develop into large specimens for the flower shows.
Fertilizing is the key to growing good dahlias, Morgan said. “I ordered a truckload of composted mushroom manure a few years ago,” he said. “When I got home it was dumped all over the driveway, blocking my garage. My wife had a fit.”
Morgan said that it took about a week to remove. “Neighbors were bringing their wheelbarrows to help me move it. It was a mess, but it’s a great product for improving the soil,” he said. “It’s called gardeners’ gold because it’s one of the best natural fertilizers you can get.”
When not tending his own 40-by-60-foot dahlia bed, Morgan often takes care of a garden at Lake Katherine’s nature center in Palos Heights. “I volunteered to put in a dahlia garden there last year, and this spring I made it twice as big,” he said.
Rebersky shares his passions. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about dahlias,” he said. “It’s been my life.”
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For more information on the Southtown Dahlia Club or the annual flower show, call Corney Morgan at 708-361-1123. The Southtown Dahlia Club’s 59th Annual Flower Show will be held from noon to 5 p.m. Aug. 31 and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 1 at Busy Bee Nursery, 19259 S. Halsted St., Glenwood.
