Everything Grows

In 1964, our family moved to the Wenatchee Valley. My dad, Tony DeRooy, had just been hired as the first Landcape Supervisor at Rocky Reach Dam. Prior to that, he had worked for the Great Northern Railroad as the third of only three (ever) Superintendents of Parks. He had followed in the footsteps of my grandfather, Arie DeRooy, who had the position from 1934 until his death at Many Glacier Lodge on August 8, 1951. Growing plants, flowers and children was their life work. Anyone who knew these men, as well as the women who have stood faithfully by (thanks, Mom!) recognized their passion. This blog will be concerned mainly with dahlia and garden thoughts, but will also discuss things that are happening in the beautiful valleys, plains and mountains that we know as North Central Washington.

Monday, April 7, 2014

IS IT TIME? ARE WE THERE YET?

Welcome to a new dahlia season - regular blogging begins today!!

 Bench starting a lot of my tubers this year
I have a new light table this year, a legacy from our dear friend Ray Brain, 
who passed away at the close of last year's dahlia season.

The fact that I haven't written my blog since November caused me a bit of difficulty this morning when I tried to post this morning. Like the tubers in my crawlspace, you might conclude that I have also been lying dormant for the past 6 months - so NOT true! During the winter, I agreed to become one of the Wenatchee World's (our local daily paper) Community Connections columnists. This venue gives me the opportunity to promote dahlias and dahlia growing throughout the North Central Washington area. Also, for the second year in a row, wrote an article for the PSDA annual publication, Dahlias of Today. If you haven't picked up your copy yet, you can order one from the ADS store (www.dahlia.org), or talk to me - our club ordered a few extras that can be had for the low low price of $12+ postage if I have to mail it to you.

I've been very busy with my dahlias, not having been able to "wait patiently" for spring to appear before digging into those beautiful brown paper boxes stuffed with pine chips and possibilities. I also started my seedlings long before I was supposed to and therefore have a couple flats full of babies that are already about 7-8 inches tall. Oh, the joy of not knowing what blooms will emerge from these seemingly similar green stems and leaves!

On my way to Fernie's this morning to do our first tuber sorting, in preparation for our April 26 tuber sale. I have 13 boxes of tubers in my Forester, ready to hit the road in about an hour....I have a few other errands to do before ending up at the Springwater headquarters for our tube sale work, so it will be full day, to be sure.


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