The light of Dahlias
George urges England pal Maro to forget his penalty woes... and NEVER surrender confrontational edge
mid-May to early June depending on your location.
And then you need to get them out of the ground for winter, unless you are somewhere mild and they will survive under a nice warm blanket of mulch.
Dahlias can be grown from tubers or seed. Seed is a much cheaper way – for a couple of quid you’ll get a packet of seeds which will give you maybe 25 or more plants whereas one tuber alone can cost the same.
If you want to grow an exact variety, tubers are the way to go as seeds give variable results – but this can be part of the fun too.
Surface sow seed in a seed tray and sieve a light dusting of compost or vermiculite on top and water in. Keep in a light warm place and after germination, when seedlings are large enough to handle, you can pot them singly into three-inch pots.
Tubers can be potted now
Cafe au Lait
in damp compost and kept in a light, frost-free place such as a greenhouse, cold frame or windowsill. When you’re ready to plant dahlias outside, choose a sunny position for maximum flowering.
Adding well-rotted manure or compost to the planting hole will help with fertility and drainage. But if your soil is very heavy clay, you could pop some horticultural grit at the bottom of the hole as well.
Your tuber will have produced lots of shoots at this stage, but it’s a good idea to nip out a few and leave just five – it will make the plant bushier and stronger.
You will need stakes for some of the taller and heavier varieties so it’s a good idea to install them at the same time as planting and then you can tie in the dahlias as they grow. Keep them watered while they establish and use a high potash feed while they grow, such as a tomato feed, to encourage flower production.
As flowers finish, deadhead them but be careful not to take off new buds when doing this as it’s easy to get mixed up – new buds are round in shape, seed heads are conical.
Dinner plate blowsy varieties like ‘Cafe au Lait’ are in vogue now – this is a florists’ dream with delicious coffee cream petals with a blush of pink.
Classic tight pompons such as ‘Franz Kafka’, with its perfect curved, deep pink petals, are lollipop and fun.
Pollinators prefer the simple single flowers with an easy route to the nectar – these include any of the Bishop series with that wonderful deep dark foliage as well.
Or maybe it’s the retro cactus type that catch your eye, such as ‘Alfred Grille’, with its fiery salmon pink and orange spiky blooms. There’s a dahlia to please everyone.
MARO ITOJE has been given the green light to keep on pushing the boundaries – despite the blitz of penalties which cost England dear against Wales last weekend.
Itoje can count himself fortunate to have escaped a yellow card for persistent offending after he coughed up FIVE penalties against the Welsh, to take his total for the Six Nations to 10 – four more than any other individual.
But his Saracens and England teammate Jamie George has warned that taking away Itoje’s ‘edge’ will make him half the performer he is.
George said: “Maro is one of the most confrontational players I have ever played with – that’s his game, and it makes him one of the best players in the world.
“On a different day, the borderline penalties might not have been given and Maro might have got ‘man of the
match’ – we’d be singing his praises. It’s a fine line.
“My message to Maro – not that he needs it – is that he should obviously learn his lessons, but it can’t take away from the intensity and the way he plays.”
As they prepare to face France at Twickenham on Saturday, England top the Six Nations penalty count alongside Italy.
The sweet spot between sluggish and over-hyped has proved elusive for Eddie Jones’s indisciplined side.
“It’s not people going out there out of control – well maybe it is,” said George (above). “I almost think it is like an air of desperation.
“Sometimes you’re not able to put your footprint personally onto a game so you go chasing it in other ways. That’s my thought process anyway.
“I can’t really describe it other than just a general sense of confusion, in that I thought we actually played some brilliant rugby in parts against Wales but once again ‘discipline’ is going to pop up. We weren’t good enough in that area.
“You’re always going to get penalties – we want to be a confrontational team and with that comes penalties – but there were probably avoidable ones in there that definitely cost us.
“It’s going to be a big thing that we need to look at going into the France game.” The French are unbeaten, and took England to extra-time in the autumn with a third XV, but their Six Nations has been disrupted by a Covid outbreak. George added: “The build-up for France won’t need much extra emotional energy – the guys will come in frothing at the mouth.
“One of our goals was to put smiles on people’s faces. We haven’t done that.
“So we’re desperate to beat France and then Ireland.”
ENGLAND have been accused of ‘gifting’ the Test series to India after failing to make the four matches a priority in an Ashes year.
A third defeat in a row, this time by an innings and 25 runs, left England with a grim reality to face up to before their next overseas assignment Down Under.
When it comes to winning away from home in India, Australia or New Zealand the trend is a worryingly bad one with six consecutive series defeats, and just one win out of 23 matches with 18 losses.
And for former skipper Michael
Vaughan, the refusal to make this series a top priority in an Ashes year is where the trouble started.
“That was where this series was gifted to India,” said Vaughan.
“You’re 1-0 up against a great side like India in their own back yard and three or four days later on the same pitch, with different conditions, you make four changes. I just didn’t
understand that. That was the statement from English cricket, ‘We’re going to do everything to try and get those Ashes back’ and that’s why it is so disappointing to me that they haven’t put all their eggs into this four Test match basket knowing that it is a big year for the Ashes.
“I felt it was all very bizarre at the time. These four games should have been the pinnacle and the priority in my eyes.”
Skipper Joe Root once again defended the rotation policy that saw Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler, and Chris Woakes all leave the tour at various points even though they were players with experience of Indian
Test match conditions. But it made hollow Root’s claim that the likes of Dom Sibley, Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope would be better equipped to do well next time because the fact is there may never be a next time for them.
“That is the unfortunate aspect when it takes four years to tour somewhere a second time,” said Root.
“Players not making the trip can happen.
“It’s easy to sit here, look at it now and pick things that could have gone better, but it was done with the best interests of the England team and the three formats.
“It’s not an ideal, perfect scenario. As a captain you want all your players available for selection as often as possible and that’s not been the case on this tour. The rotation policy is there to look after the players.”
As England were bundled out for 135, with spinners Axar Patel (flanked by Washington Sundar and Mohammed Siraj, left) and Ravichandran Ashwin both collecting a five wicket haul apiece, the focus was on the tourists’ batting.
They have now gone 74 partnerships without one topping 50, a new England record, and they had just one centurion in the series.
To emphasise the burden on Root’s shoulders, his 794 runs across the six Tests this winter represented 32 per cent of all England’s runs, also a new record.
AT least 26 players who missed out on title medals because they had not played the required number of games could now finally be rewarded for their achievements.
Championship-winning stars of yesteryear from Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Everton, Leeds, Wolves and Portsmouth – most of them in their 70s and 80s – have been eligible for recognition since the EFL decided to fall in line with Premier League requirements stipulating that players had to make a minimum of five appearances to be given medals.
The number of games used to be 14.
The EFL has confirmed medals will be rewarded retrospectively – if clubs make a written submission and the offer of payment.
The cost of each medal is believed to be in the region of just £300.
That means Ronnie Stockin, the inside forward who played six times for Wolves when they won the old first division in 1954, could get his hands on a title medal at the age of 89.
Liverpool have nine players eligible –
Chris Lawler, Terry McDermott, Alec
Lindsay, Colin
Irwin, Sammy Lee,
John Wark, Alan Kennedy, Paul Walsh and Jan Molby.
Former Manchester United goalkeeper David Gaskell missed two medals from the title-winning seasons of 1965 and 1967, making five appearances both times.
Gaskell, now aged 80, spent 14 years at Old Trafford after becoming United’s youngestever player in the 1956 Charity Shield against rivals City aged 16 years and 19 days.
He was in the squad of Busby Babes that travelled to Belgrade for a European Cup tie in February 1958, but Harry Gregg took his place.
Eight United players perished when the plane bringing them home crashed after refuelling at Munich.
David Sadler, Jimmy Ryan and the late Maurice Setters are three more United players in line to be recognised.
Sunday Mirror Sport reported in October how Manchester City had started a process to source medals for four of their 1968 champions after football historian Ian Ross helped five players from Spurs, Burnley, Derby and Leeds win appeals to the EFL.
Paul Hince, Bobby Kennedy, Stan Horne and keeper Harry Dowd, who died in 2015, are all in line. Former football journalist Ken Gaunt has also been trying to trace former players who are eligible. He said: “These players may have only played a few games – but they could have played a crucial role in their clubs becoming champions.
“It is important that their stories are told and that they are recognised properly.
“It is never too late to give them what they deserve – although many of these men are of a certain age and there is a need to get them their medals sooner rather than later so they can enjoy them.”
We have contacted the clubs involved and all have made a commitment to look into the merits of each case.
Everton’s Roger Kenyon and Frank D’Arcy played in the 1970 title-winning team, while Paul Wilkinson and Warren Aspinall helped them become champions twice in the 1980s.
Brothers Frank and Eddie Gray and Leeds team-mate Rod Belfitt are also eligible.
As is Lindy Delapenha, the Jamaica-born winger who helped Portsmouth retain the title in 1950. Delapenha died four years ago aged 89, but his family could accept a medal on his behalf.