The Connecticut Dahlia Society

March 2013 Newsletter

Date: Sunday, March 10, 2013
Place: Thomaston Savings Bank, 985 Watertown Avenue, Waterbury
Time: 1:00 pm, New Member’s Program: “Dahlia Terminology”
1:00 pm, Finance Committee Meeting
2:00 pm, Regular Meeting “Preparing your Garden & Fertilizers”

If you question that inclement weather may force a cancellation of this meeting, call your Editor.

President’s Message:

Let us hope the bad weather has come to an end. Hopefully it didn’t cause anyone too much hardship and we hope that our planned March Meeting will not be affected by another weather event.

As our winter days are passing, it will soon be time for our annual Root Sale. Now is the time to check your stock to decide what you will be purchasing and what will be your give aways. We have purchased 20 roots each of: Hy Mom, Gloriosa, Amorous, Parkland Rave, Chimicum Katie and Brookside Snowball, to add to those that will be donated by our members, it should be interesting to see how they will perform in our gardens and at our annual show and hopefully we will have a lot of entries of these varieties.

At this meeting, weather permitting, we will try to catch up on our programs for our new growers by first scheduling the cancelled February program on “Dahlia Terminology” at 1:00 pm and then immediately following the business meeting we will do the “Preparation of Your Gardens & Fertilizers” as this program will include all of our judges offering their methods on this topic.

I hope to see many of you at the March Meeting.

Donna Paternostro

Helen Barbara Hardisty Kantor

It is with sadness that we report the passing of our CDS Life Member, Barbara Kantor on February 21st at the age of 86. Barbara was the wife of the late Michael Kantor, CDS President in 1971, and the daughter of the late Walter and Ada Hardisty who were charter members of the CDS. Dahlias were a big part of Barbara’s family, beginning with her father, Walter who at one time had a commercial business selling dahlias. Barbara, you might say was raised with dahlias, and dahlias became an integral part of her life.

Barbara held many positions in the CDS during her more than 50 years of membership. She was a longtime Editor and Secretary of the society, an ADS Judge, and an exhibitor.
She had a fondness for pompons and was an excellent judge in all of the dahlia forms. Barbara was a tireless worker who undertook any job that the society needed up until 2000 when her health forced her to curtail active participation.

She was honored in 1996, when Mickey Kurtz chose to honor her by naming his AA Laciniated, Light Blend, White/Lavender origination as “Barbara Hardisty Kantor.”

I was fortunate to know Barbara and to learn from her what it means to have a sincere devotion to the dahlia, and the welfare of the Connecticut Dahlia Society.

We send our condolences to her brother, Wally, her nephew Matt and their families.

Marge Schnerr