Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I posted a couple of photos of my first (real) flush of dahlia blooms that I cut off the plants in the various spots around our garden .  Those included some "known" varieties including Wizard of Oz, Creme de Cognac, Burlesca and Blue Wish.  I said "known" because there was also a semi-cactus dark maroon dahlia that came labeled as Rip City, but is clearly NOT Rip City. Today, I'm posting some photos of some additional dahlia blooms that I cut the following day.  These, too, include mostly "known" dahlias.  And...one unknown. First...the "known".   The biggest of the bunch is Blue Wish.  And, I'll say that I might have a new favorite dahlia?  This looks like it is painted with a watercolor set.  Pale purples and whites.  Perfectly shaped. Next up is a Saint Martin Dahlia.  This one came in a combo pack from Longfield Gardens via Costco (photo of the bag below).  And, was a new-to-me variety, but the 30" height (other...

I previously posted a photo and details of our first Wizard of Oz Pompon dahlia bloom from our backyard and talked about how it signaled the coming bloom season.   With mid-July arriving, a bunch of the dahlias are beginning to really pop-off.  This post is going up in mid-July, but these photos are from July 6th.   First up is Burlesca.  One of the Burlesca dahlias planted in the "South Sun Wall" (also known as the sideyard garden) has the first few blooms fully opened .  Despite my hesitancy, I keep trying to 'cut deeply' the first few flowers to try to compel the plant to put out taller stems.  In this case, the first two came as a set.  See below.   These are hard to describe color-wise.  They are pink.  Sort-of.  They're also purple.  And a little peach down the sides.  Longfield says : " This adorable little dahlia may look pink at first glance, but what makes Burlesca so special is the way it also pu...

At the hardware store this past weekend, I came across their racks of Spring flowering bulbs that had the usual assortment of lilies, gladiolas, peonies and....the star(s) of the show:  dahlia tubers.  A huge number of them are Dinnerplate varieties, which I'm (for now) staying away from in favor of the smaller types like ball, decorative, pompon and even collarettes.   But, that doesn't mean the tuber selection isn't worth a once-over.  And, even a little bit of guided education on what they have and don't have for sale this season.   Here, below are a couple of photos showing a portion of their Spring bulbs - with a focus mostly on the non-dinnerplate dahlias.  (although...a few Dinnerplates snuck in here).   I'm still a beginner when it comes to growing dahlias, so everyone of these is new (to me).  I thought it might be a good learning experience to research a few of these to see what I can learn.  After searching for detai...