Why I Oughta...

Dahlia season has begun here.  With the initial planting of seventeen dahlias.  That was day one of planting the tubers that I started out in the garden.  I made this annotated map to show (mostly myself) where everything is planted because I'm growing many new (to me) varieties for the first time and have a much more diverse lineup than in previous seasons.  Note:  this post is going live in early June, but I planted these on May 20th.  Last year, I planted them in the first week of June , so this is almost three weeks earlier.  Here, below is that map.  So far, I've put six in the "Pizza Oven West" bed, seven along the side of the house in the "South Sun Wall" bed and four "Under the Elm".  You can see them numbered in red: Pizza Oven East 1.  Crichton Honey 2.  Cafe Au Lait 3.  Creme de Cognac 4.  Blue Wish 5.  Milena Fleur 6.  Jowie Winnie Here (below) is a photo below of these plantings.  Note that I pu...

A few of the tubers that I ordered turned out to be not viable.  And, they were sold out of a like-for-like variety, so they offered up a replacement based on their current, in-stock inventory.  I went with something I've never grown, but is pretty well-known:  Cafe Au Lait dahlias.  See below for the tuber and the package that they arrived in recently: I haven't (in the past few seasons) grown any Dinnerplate Dahlias, so this will be a new (to me) experience in terms of size and staking.  Here's what Longfield Gardens says about C-A-L : Cafe au Lait is the variety that launched today's dahlia mania. These big, romantic blooms are must-have for anyone who loves flowers. Cafe au Lait's blossoms are wonderfully variable in hue depending on weather conditions and time of year. You can expect flowers ranging from creamy yellow and bone through blush pink and rose. They are a fabulous cut flower, and like peonies, it takes just a few stems to make an impressive arran...

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-...

In mid-April, I began unwrapping, dividing and potting-up my dahlia tubers .  And, I ended up with more than 90 one-gallon nursery pots of tubers.  Were all of them viable?  I wasn't sure.  But, today, I am feeling a higher-degree of confidence in what the viability-rate looks like.  By early May, many of them were sprouting, but some still lagged behind and didn't get started.  I tried to get a good division that included a body, a neck and some portion of the crown.  Turns out, I didn't get it perfect, but did pretty well. I recently moved the tubers up out of the basement window wells to the screened porch.  Below is a look at the layout showing more than 80 viable dahlias.  #6 on my 2026 to-do list was to "Go even Bigger on Dahlias" .  I'd say that I can cross that one off my list: Some are barely moving like this one below with a tiny bit of green foliage tipping through the potting mix: While others are more than a foot tall like t...

Well, well, well:  here we are (this post is going up in mid-June, but these photos are from the end-of-May) at the end of May and we're getting Disneyland Roses.  In Bloom.   In the end of the month of May.    I have Five Disneyland Roses - with two replacement ones/larger ones planted in April of 2025 .   Below are a couple of bloom on one of the plants: Last year, I saw some blooms in early June last year, so these are a few weeks ahead of previous growing seasons.   I fed them right at the beginning of May and then again right around June 1st.   One of the things that I've struggled with on my Disneyland Roses are the short stems.  This year, I'm going to trial cutting deeper in order to see if that produces longer stems later in the season.  

In mid-April, I began the process of potting up my dahlia tubers for the year.  They are MOSTLY tubers that I have grown in previous years that I dug up and stored over winter using the Saran Wrap method .  I began by trying to divide the tubers into viable 'clumps'.  After watching a bunch of YouTube videos, I learned that tubers need to also have part of the 'neck' attached to them in order for an 'eye' to sprout.  Without that 'eye', the tuber is 'blind' and won't ever put up shoots.   I ended up potting up close to 100 tubers in one-gallon nursery containers and after watering the potting mix (just a little bit), carried them all down to my basement to begin what I call 'sprout watch' .   From what I understand, these tubers (if they are viable) have enough energy stored in them to produce the initial growth and don't need too much water in order to begin their annual cycle.  Too much water and you end up rotting the tuber, so...

Last month, I shared that I made my first (ever) order from Farmer Bailey (Garden Club Plants) for a few sets of plant plugs .   I ordered six sets of eight (8) plugs each - 48 total.  One set of six (6) of each of: Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue , Phlox Cherry Caramel , Plectranthus Silver Shield , Gomphrena Audray White , Eucalyptus Silver Dollar and Didiscus Lacy Blue . When you order from Garden Club, you get to select your delivery date.  With this being my first time doing this, I likely made a mistake:  I ordered for delivery too soon. I don't recall (now) if some of the later (late April, early May) dates were already sold out or if I just selected mid-April because I thought that was appropriate, but either way...my plugs arrived in mid-April.  They came in these cute little green plastic 'greenhouses': All 48 plugs look good and had leaf'd out.  The only one of the set that I had grown before was eucalyptus, so I knew what *that* foli...

Just a few days, I posted a ' musings' post on starting my dahlia tubers and talked about the  when/how/what/where of starting the flower farming season here in the garden.  Last year, I potted up the stored tubers right at the beginning of May and this year, I talked about trying to get it done a little bit earlier.  Today marks a few days shy of two weeks earlier.  That's pretty good, right?   The 10-day forecast shows ZERO days below freezing, but I'm not holding out hope that the last freezing temperature is behind us.  The State Climatologist Office for Illinois has a last/first frost table up on their site that I tend to use more than the Old Farmer's Almanac version.   On the Illinois version, they have a map up showing the "earliest" last Frost date (for us, it was April 9th ).  And the latest (May 28th).  The map showing the median lists April 28th for DuPage County .  And, that's just ten days away.   So,...

I went and picked up more dahlia tubers.  These would be (I think) 25 + 7 + 2 = 33rd and 34th new tuber for the season .    Here is my initial order from Bonny Blooms .  Then, a few more from Longfield Gardens .    Then, I bought some more from Longfield from Costco .  And, most recently these seven from Menards .   I also wrote this post showing some of the other tubers Menards carries and mentioned a few that jumped out to me.  The first one in that post is named Blue Wish.  And... I said : "This is one that I will buy if I go back." Bad news for dahlia haters.  I went back. And bought a package of two Blue Wish Tubers. They are waterlily dahlias.  That stay under 36" tall.   I'll find a home for them, I'm sure.   Here's what Breck's says about it : An elegant, colour-changing, water lily-type dahlia. A true spectacle in the garden, this dahlia's 4½" blooms transform from delicate white petals ...

After a few years of lackluster peony growth, last Spring I finally saw some positive improvement in the flower output of the two colonies that are dotted around our garden.  I've moved the peonies into those two colonies based on sun conditions.  The first one is in the IB2DWs bed where I have a couple of plants.  And the second is in the "kitchen curved bed" in the back where I have three more.   Below are some photos showing the red tips emerging from the mulch.  These photos are from April 6th.   I've done similar "Peonies are Back" posts over the years.  Here is that post from April 2025 - one year ago .   Last year, I cut and preserved the blooms at the "marshmallow stage" and had peony flowers for Nat's birthday in July .  I'll do that again this year.  

Last Spring, I planted two new Disneyland Roses, bringing the total number of these Floribunda roses in the sideyard to five .    The two new ones outperformed the established ones and were highly productive all the way up to Thanksgiving last Fall.   One of the decisions I made last Fall was to take a relaxed approach to overwintering these roses - which is different than what I've done in the past.  In some years, I've created rings of Chicken Wire and stuffed them with leaf litter to create an insulation layer on top of the canes.  Other years, I've used municipal biosolids + leaf litter to mound up around the crowns.   This year, I let nature take its course and have whatever leaf litter that collected around the canes to provide that insulation layer.   And....either due to a not-so-bad Winter...or....the reality that these appear to living in a small microclimate on the southside of our house, tucked in against the foundation...ha...

Yesterday, I posted the first "Getting to Know" posts about the set of plugs that I bought from Garden Club this year: Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue .  Next up is another blue bloom: Didiscus Lacy Blue .  This one is a direct recommendation from Erin the Impatient Gardener.  She mentioned that she grows these.  So...that's why I added to my cart.  So, what are they? Here is the listing from Floret : There is nothing like this super-productive, dome-shaped beauty. Each graceful disk is made of hundreds of tiny, forget-me-not-blue flowers, and the branching stems are smothered in buds. ‘Lacy Blue’ will flower for months, is slightly scented, and is the perfect size for bouquet work. Well...that sounds perfect, no?  They get 2-3 tall and need just 9" of spacing. Here is a photo from Farmer Bailey showing these growing in tunnels: Source via Farmer Bailey The Farmer Bailey growing guide mentions that they want some afternoon shade, so I think that mea...

Yesterday, I posted my Garden Club plug order and talked about how all six varieties are new (to me).   Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue is the first one up.  I bought eight plugs and this is my first Lisianthus.  If you follow any flower farmer on Instagram, you can't go a week without hearing about Lisianthus.  They're rose-like and from what I've come to understand have good 'vase life'.  These "Celeb 2" Metallic blue are described by Garden Club as: The 'Celeb' series features large to extremely large, fully double, fringed flowers. This series dominates the Japanese Lisianthus market, and many of the cut flowers we see imported from Japan are Celeb types. Those Japanese gardeners.  They're so prolific .  Anything BLUE is of immediate interest to me, so the name made these an easy-add.  The photos show a more purple color, but we'll see what happens when/if they bloom: Source via Garden Club Ball Seed says : Huge blooms with strong, w...

This past weekend, I published the 25 items on my 2026 yard and garden to-do task list and included a number of cut-flower-related items.  Growing dahlias.  Supporting dahlias.  Growing more accent plants in the vertical garden.  All were on there.  But, so was another one - number 8: 8. Experiment with other cut flowers.  Plant them in the ground (in the garden beds) and add some variety to my arrangements. New varieties.  That means new (to me).   I'm a foliage gardener.  But, I have had so much fun becoming a flower gardener, too.  I've learned so much about dahlias the past few seasons and have found some flowering perennials that I can use in some cut flower arrangements, too.   But, this year, I wanted to try some new flowers that I can use in my arrangements.  Why?  Because, if you look at them, they're VERY dahlia-heavy .  That's not a bad thing.  But, if you're not changing and learning, you'r...