Showtime for diverse dahlias

Loretta Nelson of Taradale, who has been growing dahlias for 50 years, is looking forward to today's big show being staged in Napier. PHOTO/Paul Taylor HBT17012601

After 50 years of growing, displaying and picking up awards for her diverse varieties of dahlias, Napier woman Loretta Nelson is more than adept at ensuring the flowers are in the best of shape - even during the worst of times.

"The winds we've had lately have been horrendous," she said, explaining that she devised "splints" to keep many of the 80 dahlias growing in her garden in the best shape.

As well as the winds, the waves of heat had also been challenging as it could cause stems to go into lazy "esses".

"So I've got splints on some stems - they are held on by clothes pegs."

Like other growers of the unique dahlia varieties (the flowers range in size from mere golf balls to an adult's head), she is looking forward to the annual Hawke's Bay Dahlia Circle public show which is being staged at the Tamatea Intermediate Hall today between 10am and 4pm.

It would be an understatement to say Mrs Nelson has seen her fair share of dahlia shows all over the country, and picked up scores of awards accordingly.

She and her late husband arrived in Hawke's Bay to permanently live in 1981 and she immediately joined the local dahlia club.

"I'm the only one still going from then," she said.

But her enthusiasm for the variety goes way back, to when she was living in Masterton and passed by a shop where dahlias made up the window display - with passersby urged to "order now for spring".

Which she did, and the following autumn she entered two of her efforts in a local show.

"I got two firsts - I was hooked," she said.

After getting married she and her husband moved to Dunedin for his work, to Hawke's Bay for a time in the 60s, then to Timaru and then back to the Bay.

"When we first moved here it was Queen's Birthday weekend and he was straight into his shorts - we loved it here."

So did her efforts in the gardens through the years.

"Hawke's Bay is a great climate for growing them - but I haven't enjoyed this wind."

Now in her 70s, she said she was always happy to help people when it came to growing a fine dahlia and was equally happy to follow the shows around.

After the Hawke's Bay show she would be off to one being staged in Hamilton, then off to Feilding ... then Rotorua.

"Our show here is always a popular one," Mrs Nelson said, adding there were dahlia specialists coming in from Auckland, Rotorua, Palmerston North, Thames and Otaki.