Cyril Keen has only been a member of the Ashburton Dahlia Circle for a year but he is already winning prizes.
His green fingers are evident on a wander around his garden.
His spider-orange and yellow tipped ‘show n tell‘ winning dahlia towers over him at 2.4metres in height.
It’s won him two prizes.
‘‘I just love my garden,’’ he said.
He is a member of the Ashburton Dahlia Circle who got into growing dahlias after several years as a member of the Ashburton Garden Club.
‘‘I was tasked with finding gardens in the Netherby area for judging for the annual competition,” he said.
‘‘I kept seeing a lovely, dahlia filled garden in Princes St.
‘‘One day I knocked on the lady’s door, telling her I loved dahlias and asked if I could get some of the tubas.”
He now has about 80 variety of them in his garden, and he likes the pom-poms “as they don’t die away so quickly”.
But his favourite dahlia is Black Jack, a deep wine red and velvet looking variety.
Keen said there was a lot of work went into growing dahlias, but the work was worth it.
He thought the secret to growing the tall dahlias had been the horse manure he got from the Ashburton Racecourse.
He likes the idea the manure may have come from a winning horse, which has lead to a winning dahlia.
