Catalog of Gilbert Dahlia Farm 1925

PLEASE READ BEFORE ORDERING — To those who are unacquainted with the different classes and varieties of Dahlias, I would suggest that such leave the selection to me. Send the amount you wish to invest, and my liberal filling of the order will be more than satisfactory.

AS ORDERS ARE FILLED IN ROTATION — with field grown roots only — ordering early will insure the reservation of varieties that later may be sold out. CASH WITH ORDER. All orders will be shipped after May 1st, by express or insured mail at my expense. Dahlias ordered shipped before April 1 5th will be sent at purchaser’s risk of drying out, freezing or rotting.

GUARANTEE— I guarantee safe arrival of all goods. I guarantee all bulbs to be true to name, and will cheerfully replace them if not. DO NOT PLANT TUBERS IMMEDIATELY ON RECEIPT OF SAME. Put in a warm, sunny position, cover lightly with damp sand, and when sprout or eye makes positive growth, plant where desired. If, for any reason, tubers fail to grow, they can be returned at once, without labor or loss of time, with tag attached, and each tuber returned will be replaced.

SIZE OF BULBS. The size of the bulb or tuber does not in any way designate the size or quality of the flower. Some varieties of Dahlias always produce very small bulbs, while other varieties make large ones. The only requisite of a Dahlia bulb is the certainty of having one strong eye or sprout, and whether large or small, proper cultivation assures success. A division of a clump, pot-root, cutting, sprout, and even a Dahlia seed, will grow and blossom, equally well.

REMITTANCES should be made by bank draft, post office money order or registered letter. POST OFFICE MONEY ORDERS MUST BE MADE PAYABLE AT EAST MORICHES, N. Y. Postage stamps accepted up to $2.00.

ERRORS. — While my system for handling orders is as near perfect as possible, in the rush of business errors are possible. If promptly notified of such, will at once make same satisfactory. Keep a copy of your order for comparison.

NAME AND ADDRESS. Remember to write your NAME, POST OFFICE, COUNTY and STATE PLAINLY.

HOW TO GROW EXHIBITION BLOOMS.— Producing exhibition blooms is not a mysterious art. Late planting, severe pruning and disbudding, fertilizing and irrigating, and above all, constant cultivation, assure success, where size is demanded. For such flowers the soil cannot be too rich. 

When ready to plant, furrows or holes should be opened to a depth of six inches, the tuber laid on its side, sprout uppermost and the earth filled in. 

When the sprout is above the surface — if more than one, remove all but the strongest — pinch back to compel branching at ground level, guard against cutworms, and keep the ground loose with rake or cultivator.

When the buds appear, remove all but the terminal bud if that is imperfect, choose another and cut off side shoots full length of stem with a sharp knife, leaving the lower part of the foliage to act as lungs for the plant. 

To produce some of the immense flowers seen in competition, this art of forcing is often carried to a point where the tubers have little value. Too much fertilizing and watering is very injurious to the tuber crop, and forced plants produce small and imperfect flowers the following season. 

Much experiment and study has convinced me that field-grown dahlia roots keep better, and produce more and better flowers during the season following a dry year, and we always eye with suspicion any grown under irrigation. We know that a hard keeper like Geisha keeps best when grown in sandy soil, and rain is scarce.

HARD WOODED PLANTS. — If tubers are planted early in rich soil, forcing quick growth, and the season is hot and dry, there is cause for much disappointment. Hardened wood results, few blooms and imperfect flowers. 

If this is your case, be not dismayed. Cut the plant back to the ground if the idea scares you, try two-thirds — and the new soft growth will soon burst into beauty with perfect flowers. Feed them a little, ease them of their load by disbudding, and watch the plant respond.

HOW TO KEEP CUT BLOOMS OF DAHLIAS.— Freshly cut flowers will keep considerably longer, and wilted flowers, if not in too serious condition, will be entirely restored in appearance, if the following suggestions are followed.

Cut blossoms in the early part of the day, whenever possible. Fill the receptacle with water near the boiling point, 200° is correct. Plunge the stems, but not the foliage, 6 inches into the water, let them remain until it cools, then transfer into cold water.

STAKING. For specimen plants staking is advocated. When planting tubers drive stake in beside tuber before covering, and when plant reaches a height of two feet, secure it to the stake, repeating operation when plants make fuller growth. This will keep the stalk from being broken by the wind and assure perfect protection.

DIGGING FOR WINTER. As soon as the frost cuts the tops of the dahlias, the sap recedes into the roots. Then is the best time to dig. 

Cut the stalks back to within three inches of the crown. In digging use a spade, and dig wide of the plant, say fifteen inches, to avoid cutting the tubers. By digging wide you take no risks. 

Do not pull the clumps out of the ground, but dig deep and lift the soil and tubers as you go 'round the plant. This enables you to get the clumps without breaking the necks. 

A clear, sunny day is ideal for digging dahlias, and when you have lifted the clumps, allow them to stand in the sun for three hours to dry, when the tubers are ready for their permanent storing place.

If there was one new dahlia that stood out during the past season it was Mueller’s decorative, ROBERT TREAT. For those who crave size it has that to spare, and its color, a duplicate of the old Hybrid Show AMERICAN BEAUTY, with an added sheen that gives it life, is a very desirable color.

JERSEY'S BEAUTY showed up just as well as during the previous year, and nearly every exhibit carried one or more blooms of this fine variety.

ELITE GLORY was shown at the top of its form, and there are thousands to whom its immense size will appeal, though it is too coarse a bloom to do more than swagger its short day, and then, pass into limbo. My daughter gave me an inkling of how such a giant strikes many flower lovers.

One of the things that struck me most, when viewing the few new dahlias, was the real quality, or I had better say, the commercial value of most of them like MERRICK, MORDELLA, TREN TONIAN, HARRY HOLBROOK, this last having the characteristic of JERSEY’S BEAUTY, the laying back of petals that assures a good keeping cut flower. 

An English cactus that I have bragged of ever since Stredwick listed it in 1918, came to the fore at this show, that pink beauty, MRS. ALFRED HARVEY, a dahlia that we have never had enough of to list, as our stock is always sold before digging time.

Of the whites there were no new ones to rave over. Judge Marean’s POLAR SNOW, a beautiful flower, showed up as well as it had two years ago, and Mrs. Stout’s WHITE SISTER was good. WORLD’S BEST WHITE looked fine, but ROBERT LAURIE BLACK was the one best bet in white last season. 

The flowers were immense, the depth remarkable, and the glowing color, a white that seems to have robbed the sun of some of its light, is extremely pleasing. The fact that this very good dahlia failed miserably at Storr’s, shows how little value there is in the snap judgment of one season, though I am inclined to believe that all the original stock was weak when sent out, as it was a failure here the first year.

Of the yellows and bronzes, Capt. John R. Howell’s seedling and namesake, CAPT. JOHN, a very large decorative of BILLIONAIRE gold, slightly flushed salmon, is hard to beat. This variety has been one of the sensational dahlias among the country’s best, grown for display at Bronx Park, and I thought so well of it that I took over the whole stock. If there is any better flower of its color I have failed to run across it.

Californian dahlias were practically snowed under by the Eastern varieties, and I think it due to there being such masses of the Eastern flowers. 

The showing of SAGAMORE, the immense basket of glorious blooms framed in black and green that John Sheepers at his best never surpassed, was a picture worth traveling a week to see. It was the most artistic and gorgeous ensemble ever staged, and the master who splashed that dream at the end of the hall deserved a gold cup the size of his basket. 

An artist friend of mine who is well known as a painter of landscapes, spent an hour gaping at it from every angle possible, and a girl I have never heard gush in all the time I’ve known her, called it “gaspingly glorious.” It robbed the judges of sight and reason.

To choose the best varieties from among the hundreds benched in a season is not possible for a mere man. Every one that looks worthwhile, I buy and try. Many that are not worth a tinker's dam, because of some bad characteristic, I grow for my own pleasure because of some trait that sets them apart. 

But one could not end a talk on the shows without mention of such dahlias as LORNA SLOCOMBE, a flower to which one can truly give the adjective glorious, of Grienberg’s GIANT RUBY, a king among reds.

At the County Fair, which opened for a five-day run on the same day as the A. D. S. show in New York, and where we have to concentrate our forces if we would hang on to our lead, the growers make a better showing because the battlefield is nearer home. 

The varieties benched—as in New York—seemed to be Eastern by a large margin. 

John Lewis Childs again showed PENATAQUIT in a way that proves it one of the best, and it stood out boldly even among the thousands of flowers in their exhibit. Both Childs and Howell had more Californian varieties than I. Here is the list that won us the blue for the best 100 varieties:

Cactus

Alex. Kennedy, Coronia, F. W. Fellowes, Julian, Mrs. Alfred Harvey, Mrs. Cooper, Norman, Oceanic, Pierrot, Silverhill Park, Valiant, Vicar Of Wasperton.

Shows

Betty Bird, D M. Moore, Dreer’s White, Florence, Gen. Miles, Gold Medal, Gracchus, Grand Duchess Marie, Lily P. Hathaway, Mrs J. P. Smith, North Carolina, Tom Jones.

Hybrid Cactus

Ambassador, Colossal Peace, Esther R. Holmes, Etendard De Lyon, Lady Helen, Lolita Velasco, Mandalay, Mrs. Bailey, New Moon, Nibelungenhort, Red Cross, Rheims, Ruth Van Fleet, Scaramouche, Siskiyou, Sunkist.

Peony

Audrey, Autumn Glory, Betty Darnell, Devotion, Dream Light, Drum Major, Edith Cavell, F. G. Scheiff, Geisha, Lady Betty, Meyerbeer, Pacific Sunset, Pride Of Portland, Uncle Sam.

Decoratives

Agincourt, Aibonita, Amun Ra, Bashful Giant Ben Wilson, Brushwood Boy, Cambria, Charm, Clara Finger, Dagmar, Dorothy Long, Elizabeth Slocombe, E. T. Bedford, El Dorado, Flanders Fields, Heart Of Darkness, Hortulanus Fiet, Hercules, Insulinde, Jean Roosevelt, Jeanette Selinger, Jersey’s Emperor, Judge Marean, Junior, Jacqueline Darnell, Margaret Yardley, Martha, Mildred Burgess, Millionaire, Mrs. Atherton, Mrs. I. De Ver Warner, Mrs. John Sheepers, Myra Valentine, Perfect Beauty, Penataquit, Proxie, Oconee, Red Planet, Robert Laurie Black, Samadh, Sampson, The Sunrise Trail, The Emperor, Tus1tala, Wonder, World’s Best White.

But after a growing or bowing acquaintance with nearly all listed dahlias, governed, as one will be, by the expressions and opinions of others, I set down these three for my choice, as the best of all dahlias to date: First, that incomparable

MRS. I DE VER WARNER; secondly, JERSEY’S BEAUTY, greatest of all commercial dahlias, and thirdly, JEAN ROOSEVELT, which is not only a very beautiful dahlia, but larger than either of the others. The flower with which we won first prize in the largest Decorative class at our County Fair in 1923 covered a dinner plate, entirely hiding it.

Regarding my first choice, I am happy to state that most of the growers who have no two-edged sword ready in defense of their own seedlings, agree with me. Even when a peony, — and the dahlia does not exist that will not show an open center at some time it is still the best of the type, with its exquisitely whorled corona, and many a superlative (?) dahlia will come and go before the all- round equal of MRS. I DE VER WARNER is produced.

I place JEAN ROOSEVELT third because it was the first choice and the biggest seller among all the varieties I grew during the past season, and because it is my own particular pet. 

Grown in the show plot, beside all the best American and European varieties, flanked by AMBASSADOR and ELDORADO, with a row of JUDGE MAREAN and one of MYRA VALENTINE flanking these, in spite of the higher price it outsold them all, and was the first choice of most other visitors who could not afford the more costly varieties. 

THE SUNRISE TRAIL, because of its brilliant scarlet and gold, that smote the eye immediately, attracted most attention, but JEAN ROOSEVELT ran far ahead in sales.

This type of dahlia came about through the efforts of European — especially English — gardeners to produce a more loose artistic flower, to spur the waning interest of a public “fed up” on the stiff show and the small single. 

Previous to the introduction of the Cactus type, the dahlias that grew in spite of care — rather than because of it — in our grandmother’s gardens, were as round, hard, stiff and ungraceful as a green apple, their sole virtues being a touch of color, and unequal sturdiness. 

The first Cactus dahlia named Juarez, in honor of President Juarez of Mexico, and called a cactus because of its resemblance in color to the red cactus of the plains, was found in Juxphaor, Mexico, in 1872 by J. T. Vanderberg, and sent by him to an English florist, who exhibited it in England in 1882. 

Its graceful form and brilliant color at once captured the fancy of flower lovers, and today there is no flower more popular. 

The progeny of Dahlia Juarezi not only “broke” into various colors, but different shapes as well. It was by selecting the most desirable of these, and reselecting the finest from each succeeding generation of plants, that the Cactus Dahlia has arrived at its present state of perfection. 

Today this variety is divided into two groups; the fluted and Hybrid types, classified by the American Dahlia Society as follows:

a. True, fluted type. 

Flowers fully double; floral rays (petals) long, narrow, incurved or twisted, with sharp, divided, or fluted points and with revolute (rolled back) margins, forming, in the outer florets, a more or less perfect tube for more than half the length of the ray.

b. Hybrid cactus or semi-cactus type.

 Flowers fully double; floral rays short as compared with previous type, broad, flat, recurved or twisted, not sharply pointed except when tips are divided (staghorn), margins only slightly revolute, and tubes of outer florets, if any, less than half the length of the ray.

The Decorative Dahlia is the pride of all Dahlias, standing out pre-eminently. In a garden the plants are strong, sturdy, vigorous growers, with heavy, dark green foliage, and a remarkable constitution. 

The blossoms are produced in great profusion, which is exceptional for a type of giant-flowering Dahlias. 

For cut-flower purposes they are unsurpassed, having long, straight stems of wiry stiffness, and carry their flowers in a pleasing manner. These are principally their lasting qualities when cut — they are unequaled, lasting longer than any of the other types.

As an exhibition flower the Decorative Dahlia is the most gigantic of all Dahlia blossoms, having beauty, substance, quality — all essential characteristics of a true “Model of Perfection.” As a decorative flower they are first in every respect; being graceful, adapted to designs, and most artistic.

The blossoms of the Decorative Dahlias are large, flat, but beautiful in shape, and full to the center. The petals are somewhat irregularly situated, long, broad, flat and nearly straight.

Prompted by the great popularity of the Cactus Dahlia—so different from the stiff, ball-shaped Dahlias, but only fitted for exhibition—European hybridizers went after a type suitable for both garden and cut-flower purposes.

By crossing the Cactus with the Single, and vice versa, they developed this new type now popular all over the world. These long stemmed semi-double Dahlias were grown in Holland, and sold as Half-double Giant Dahlias. 

Mr. H. Hornsveld, an Orchid specialist of Baarn, Holland, immediately saw their possibilities and collected the largest and most promising specimens. The great development and present value of the Peony-flowered type is due to him. 

After seven years of cross-hybridizing and developing (July, 1904), he was able to show the results at the meeting of the Dutch Horticultural Society at Rosendaal, where he exhibited four varieties, Queen Wilhelmina, Duke Henry, Baron G. de Grancy and Glory of Baarn. Here he received a first-class certificate of Merit, and the admiration and encouragement of growers and lovers of beauty. After Dusseldorf came Paris, Amsterdam, and London.

The rich, golden yellow canter, loosely arranged petals, large and fluffy, gives them a certain fascination and artistic appearance that none of the other types possess. They are favorite garden and cut-flower dahlias, producing abundantly and continuously. Stems are long and graceful, and their blossoms are remarkably effective in bouquets.

Flowers are semi-double, having two, three or more rows of broad, flat, loosely arranged rays, or petals, surrounding an open center, which is usually a conspicuous golden yellow. 

The inner floral rays are usually curled or twisted, the outer rays either flat, or more or less irregular. Sometimes the rays are pointed, occasionally they curl and twist over the center, causing them to resemble the Chinese Peony, hence the name.

This class is in all probability the oldest flower form of the dahlia and is therefore more universally known. They are valuable for massing or making special effect in borders. 

The advancement in this class has been very pronounced, giving greater depth of bloom on increased length of stem. They make a fine showy room decoration, and will keep fresh longer and stand more handling than any of the classes.

Flowers globular or ball shaped, rather than broad or flat, full to the center, showing regular spiral arrangement of florets with floral rays or petals more or less quilled or with their margins involute (rolled forward or inward) and rounded tip. 

Dahlias of this type with flowers spotted, variegated, or parti-colored, were formerly classed as Fancy, a group no longer recognized.

This is a type of Dahlia having characteristics of both the Decorative and Show types. The flowers are fully double, broadly hemispherical to flatly globular in form, loosely built so spiral arrangement of florets is not immediately evident; floral rays broad, heavy cupped or quilled, with rounded tips and involute margins.

Becoming extremely popular because adaptability to decorative effect both perfection of flower, eight petaled in circle.

A beautiful type of flower introduced by French specialists. The flowers are single, with one or more minor petals, usually of a different color, growing from the heart of larger florets, making a collar for the disk. Great favorites in European gardens and exhibitions, they undoubtedly will become better known, then more extensively grown in America.

Named from the French word signifying ornament for headdress, in military parlance “tuft,” because of its resemblance to the ball of wool worn on the shakos of the Voltigeurs in 1800 and adopted later by English regiments, changing into the shaving brush adorning the headgear of the French infantry of the line in 1850. 

The name of this variety has many variations, Stredwick insisting on PomPom, West Pompone, and one of our American growers Ponpon. This is the best all- round class for every purpose, exceedingly floriferous, unbeatable for a border because of its low growth — about 2 feet — and closely formed bush, unexcelled for Bouquet and vase work, and running the range of every color shade found in the larger classes. 

We are great rooters for this class and believe we grow more varieties of it than any other grower.

Flowers of this type for show purposes should be double ball shaped rather than flat, full to center, petals quilled or with rolled-in edges, rounded tops and less than 2 inches in diameter.