DAHLIA PALS’ BIG ADVENTURE
Best blooms headed to England: ‘My friends in Ireland say if we bring anything less than the best, we’ll crawl out in shame’
Malachy and John are so sorry to miss the dahlia show at the Royal Botanical Gardens this weekend, but they have bigger fish to fry.
The two pals packed up their dazzling dahlias in a crate the size of a hope chest and jetted off to England on Wednesday to compete in one of the biggest dahlia shows in the world.
“It’s been on John’s bucket list for years,” Malachy Byrne says. “But we’ve been warned not to bring anything less than perfect or we’ll be a disgrace.”
We are in John Mooney’s Hamilton Mountain backyard. In the distance are rows and rows of dahlias, staked up with sticks and rods, covered with umbrellas, some covered in nylon stockings like bumbling bank robbers. “It keeps the bugs off,” he explains.
If you know dahlias, you know Mooney, multiple award winner, past president of the Hamilton and District Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Society, retired tool and dye maker, grower since 1972. Byrne, a retired school teacher, is newer to the sport.
Believe me folks, it is a sport. “I love the competition,” Mooney admits.
Just about now, Mooney and Byrne will be unpacking their crate and primping their dahlias for the Harrowgate Autumn Flower Show. Harrowgate is a spa town in North Yorkshire, but there will be nothing relaxing about the show. At last check, 2,200 entrants are registered to compete. There will be a forest of dahlias, including the 15 or so Byrne and Mooney are lugging from Hamilton in their custom crate.
Byrne built it. It’s thin plywood with movable racks where the dahlias stand upright in their water filled vases made from McDonald’s coffee cups. They’re sturdier than Tim Hortons cups, Mooney says, and the lid seals better. The box is painted with a classic Canadian moose motif, courtesy of Mooney’s four granddaughters.
“I bribed them with homemade pie,” Mooney’s wife Sheila says ruefully.
Many anxious calls were made to Air Tran-
sat about the precious cargo. Would they need special paperwork? Would the crate be considered luggage? Would it be stowed somewhere temperate with the pet cats and pedigree dogs on the flight? Affirmative, says Byrne.
The dahlias must arrive in pristine shape: bright colour, straight stems, no blemishes. They may be in better shape than Byrne and Mooney, who do not seem to have built sleep time into their schedule.
They will have cut the flowers in Mooney’s garden Wednesday morning, choosing 15 to 20 of the best blooms. Wyn’s Neon, Trooper Dan, Kenora Valentine, AC Ben and a new red dahlia bred by Mooney will make the trip. The Mooney dahlia is entered in the Overseas Seedling Class, where the competition might not be as fierce.
“I’m petrified,” Byrne suddenly blurts out. “My friends in Ireland say if we bring anything less than the best, we’ll crawl out in shame.”
“Now Malachy, don’t get so dramatic,” Sheila says like a woman who has heard it all before.
As far as Byrne and Mooney know, they are the first Canadians to compete at Harrowgate. Though there is much joshing and storytelling by the two charming Irishmen, they are serious competitors. Mooney’s dahlias have won awards at shows across North America, and his own bred-in-Hamilton dahlias are sold via catalogue in the U.S.
“It’s not luck, it’s hard work,” Mooney says as he adjust an umbrella to protect the dahlias from rain. “It’s attention to detail, the disbudding, the dis-branching, the staking.”
Not to mention making earwig traps out of soaker hoses and attaching one to each dahlia.
After the competition, the two will rent a car big enough to hold their crate and go on a tour, visiting friends in England and Ireland.
“We’ve never done anything this big,’ Mooney says. “It’s a big one to cross off the bucket list.”
See for yourself the spirited world of competition at the Hamilton and District Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Show this weekend at the Royal Botanical Gardens. The schedule is at www.hamiltonmum-dahlia.com.