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Show Ritter earns floriculture awards 4 KAYSVILLE "There is no secret to raising beautiful flowers'claims Edward Ritter, champion floriculturist, "it's just hard work. ' This year Ritter received ten awards of merit, eight special rosette awards and five special award trays for his floral entries in the Utah State Fair. When added to other prizes he has received since he first started entering flowers in the state fair in 1967, Ritter has 47 trophies, trays and plaques and 79 rosettes and other special awards. The big winners for Ritter this year were his dahlias. These are shown as single flowers or in a grouping of three. Ritter's dahlia rubers originated in the northwest He received his first starts from a friend in Farm-ington. Farm-ington. Today, he has over 200 plants. Each fall the dahlias are dug and the tubers are carefully stored in a special ' vermiculite in Ritter's basement. When the time comes to plant them in the spring, Ritter divides the tubers by cutting them into pieces. Each piece contains one "eye." i I f When fair time gets near, Ritter decides which flowers are the best for the show. He carefully shades these selected blooms with an umbrella. um-brella. It is difficult to determine which flowers are show quality because all of Ritter's dahlias are beautiful. Besides winning prizes for dahlias, Ritter also brought home awards for marigolds, cosmos, miniature min-iature roses and calendulas. Many of the miniature roses were started from slips. Ritter saves some of his See Awards A-2 - Awards Cont. from A-1 own seeds. He purchases others through the Burpee catalog. 'I hate to see the first frost come every year Ritter confesses. It's hard for me to see the beauty of the flowers go away. ' After the frost, Ritter gets busy preparing his yard for next year's flowers. He shreds everything he grows along with leaves and puts it all back into the soil. Commercial fertilizer is applied in the spring. This year, Ritter tried a new fertilizer fer-tilizer product that is applied monthly through an attachment that fits onto the garden hose. It seemed to work well. Besides raising fall flowers, Ritter has an outstanding collection of irises. He belongs to the American Iris Society and enjoys showing these spring blossoms. Ritter' s wife, Wanda, helps her husband with his major hobby. She also arranges many of the fair entries. en-tries. During the winter months, Ritter keeps busy creating hooked rugs and Japanese Bunka embroidery pictures. Besides entering flowers in various competitions, Ritter also supplies flora arrangements for local businesses, churches and the senior citizens center. He often comments, "A greater power than ours provided the entries. We are the caretakers." |
