Good Morning all!
Monday was the only day this past week I was able to (or felt like) working outside. I worked all afternoon Monday hauling wood chips for the garden walkways & didn’t come in until it was too dark to see what I was doing. Tuesday, I was out of town all day (riding in the car for a total of 6 hours was ‘fun’ – really got stiff after the day before!). I was so tired Wednesday, I was a ‘slacker’, then we had company Thursday, right in the middle of the afternoon which messed that up for going outside and getting all dirty/not company presentable. Yesterday was a chilly rainy day so to do something “fun” and related to gardening, it was “Dahlia Day”!
My niece grows a bush or two of dahlias – big white fluffy ones that are gorgeous in flower arrangements. I’ve been wanting to grow dahlias ever since I’ve seen hers so this year is The Year – I’m going to try Hollyhocks for the first time as well. I found some relatively “cheap” dahlia bulbs at Walmart & also bought some more expensive ones at Lowe’s – one of the bulbs at Lowe’s is the one I really wanted once I saw it. So here are links to the ones I got:
Crazy Love (my fave – similar to my niece’s, but with some lavender edging)
https://garden.org/plants/view/148094/Dahlia-Crazy-Love/
Mero Star (dinner plate size, reportedly ‘stunning’ by folks who have grown it)
https://garden.org/plants/view/531201/Dahlia-Mero-Star/
Kelvin Flashlight (another large one with blooms 6-12”)
https://garden.org/plants/view/111082/Dahlia-Kelvin-Floodlight/
Lucky Number (got to have at least 1 pink one)
https://garden.org/plants/view/171476/Dahlia-Lucky-Number/
I looked up dahlias to see if deer like them and they do, especially when young & tender. I am going to have to use 2 of my galvanized raised beds to accommodate all the dahlias I want to plant. These raised beds are in ‘pairs’ so I will have to make fencing for them & I can fence two at a time. I have plenty of wire, just need to buy the pvc for the frames … ugh – price is way up …. maybe I ‘ll get lucky & can find some pipe in one of the pole barns.
My dad loved sunflowers and I like them too, but they get raggedy pretty quickly and the squirrels get in them. I’m not going to grow a bed of sunflowers this year – if I grow any, it will be dwarf Teddy Bears. The large sunflower bed will be for zinnias since the dahlias will be in the beds I used for zinnias last year.
Silly Spring ditty that one of my dad’s favorites: “Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the flowers is?”
I don't bother saving the tubers, (sacrilege to some!) but you can certainly do that, too.
My fave, that is easy to find in the Walmart stock is, 'Cafe Au Lait' Dinner Plate Dahlia. Sometimes they're more 'chocolate' and sometimes more pink; probably depends upon soil acidity, though I don't know for sure. :
Anything in the 'Kelvin' series is wonderful, too!
Check https://www.cultivariable.com/catalog/everything-else/ for edible Dahlias to add to the mix.
(The tubers are the edible part.)
I got my first ever large-flowered dahlias last year, from www.dalhias.com (Swan Island Dahlias ), and have more on pre-order for this spring. I saved my tubers from last season, and hope they will be OK until I pot them up in the greenhouse in April. Like to get an early start before planting outside at the end of May.
It was amazing watching them grow and bloom last year.
You will enjoy them.
🙂