Why I Oughta...

I planted a pair of Saint Martin Waterlily dahlia tubers this season and they've been (BY FAR) the most prolific dahlia that I've ever grown.  They have thrown off blooms since (at least) July and are still loaded with blooms on the tips of thin, but fairly strong stems.  But, those stems are different than most of the rest of my dahlias.  Most dahlia stems (in my experience) are hallow.  Like straws.  But, Saint Martin stems are far more thin.  And, if they're straw-like, the straw is super small.   These also have smaller and different texture leaves on the flower stems than most of  my other dahlias.  We've had some rain this week, so that means when the dahlia plants are full of blooms (and buds), they tend to get weighed down.  Saint Martin is almost folding in half in parts.   That lead me to cut a bunch of them while they're opened.  I also grabbed some Crichton Honey, Brown Sugar, a lone Blue Wish dahlia blo...

Dahlia cutting season is moving quickly these days. After waiting to cut anything for a while due to trying to cut them for the girls' Homecoming corsages, we're now flush with blooms.  On a recent morning, I went out and snip'd off a number of blooms.  That will BOTH drive more blooms to arrive, but it also has the secondary benefit of removing some of the weight on the tips of the stems.   Below are a pair of cut dahlia stem arrangements.  These are cut from the front Island Bed, IB2DWs, sideyard and both sides of the pizza oven bed.  They feature Brown Sugar, Milena Fleur, Crichton Honey, Rip City (not Rip City), Wizard of Oz, Tsuki Yori No Shisha (Messenger of the Moon) Notably, Tsuki Yori No Shisha is a fimbriated dahlia.  My only one (that I can confirm). But, perhaps the (NOT) Rip City dahlia is fimbriated, too?   Counting down the days until our first frost.  Hoping for a late October arrival.  

Last week, my set of tubers from Bonny Blooms arrived (finally) and I quickly got to work planting them up in one-gallon nursery containers.  I ordered seven total dahlia tubers from Bonny Blooms in November 2025.   This was the first time I have ordered from Bonny Blooms and selected four different dahlia varieties:  Bell's Palermo (1 tuber), Peaches-N-Cream (2 tubers), Crichton Honey (2 tubers) and Brown Sugar (2 tubers).  These all were dahlias that I came across in year-end videos on Dahlia-Tok that growers/flower farmers have raved about in terms of how they look and how prolific bloomers they were in their own fields .   I was getting a little impatient because my order from Bonny Blooms had not arrived, so I went to their site where on the homepage they have a little 'chat' widget in the bottom corner .  Based on some advice on a dahlia-growing Facebook group, I pasted my order number in that chat window and inquired about shipping.  A day-...