Why I Oughta...

Earlier this week, I posted some photos and research on the dahlia tubers that are being sold at the big box hardware store near me .  I listed some of the stars (to me) and talked about what was appealing to me.  There was one more that I didn't talk about, but I ended up bringing home.  Actually...two more because this is a package of seven tubers in what they call the "Cherry Pie Blend".  They have the same listing over at TulipWorld that you can see here .  Below is the front of the package that shows a photo of the two different varieties, but....doesn't LIST THEM by name: The package, does however, provide some good information.  First...the hieght.  Says...40".  That's right in my target height range.   And the photo shows two different varieties.  One with light centers and dark undertones.  And the other with dark centers.  Very complimentary of each other, so I can see why they put these together in this 'blend'....

Dahlia season is coming fast.  Or, at least it is feeling like it is coming fast to this gardener.  The past two seasons, I've started my tubers indoors, well ahead of the last frost date (around Mid-May here).  In 2024, I started them in early May.  There were only six tubers  to start.  How quaint.  Looks like I ended up with twelve total .  I planted them outdoors in June 2024 .   Last year, in 2025, I also planted them up starting indoors.  In early May .  By mid-May they were showing signs of growth .  I began to harden-the-off towards the end of May and (like 2024), planted them outside in the beginning of June .  Last year, I also pinched them all back to try to get bush-ier growth.   My plan for 2026 is to follow a similar trajectory, but I'm thinking I can start them even earlier.  Like mid-April.  The last frost date varies around here , but generally is between the middle and end of May....

A couple of days ago, I posted the details of the eight-pack of dahlia tubers that I picked up at Costco on a recent visit.  The tubers are from a source that I've purchased many tubers/bulbs from: Longfield Gardens.  And, this eight-pack featured four tubers of two different varieties.  I already posted about the four Rip City dahlias (they're informal decorative dahlias).  Today, I'm posting about the other four:  Saint Martin dahlias.   I mentioned that these were both new (to me) varieties, but I was drawn to their heights.  My preference is towards shorter varieties that don't have the same staking/support requirements of many other dahlias.  Below is a photo of the back of the package showing the Saint Martin stats.  Note the spacing (20") and height (30").   And, here below is the front of the package showing the Saint Martin having slightly smaller blooms that are two-toned in white and pink.   Besides the he...

This weekend, we popped into Costco and to my surprise (delight?), they had their Longfield Gardens Spring bulbs (tubers) up front in the metal racks.  Amongst the peonies and ranunculus were a number of packages of Dahlia tubers.  I've posted about the tubers that I've already bought. Here's my Bonny Blooms order , which has seven total tubers.  Pairs of Crichton Honey, Peaches-n-cream and Brown Sugar and a single Bell's Palermo.  All of these are 'new to me'.  And, here is my second order from Longfield Gardens that has five more (new to me) varieties .  So, that's nine new varieties that I have to find homes for in the beds.  Seven + ten = 17 containers to pot-up in addition to what I stored over Winter in Saran Wrap. But, that didn't stop me from looking over the rack at Costco.  And, based on a couple of things, I ended up picking up this eight-pack of Tubers.  I'll post about each of the two varieties in separate posts. Here's the front...

Last week, I posted about how there were a few Disneyland Roses that were still popping-off outside .  A couple days ago, I decided to cut them off and bring them inside to stick in a vase.  Who doesn't want Disneyland Roses for Thanksgiving, right?  I don't totally understand how (or why?) these are blooming, but I'm happy to take the flowers.  At the same time, I fear that these tender parts won't harden-off before *REAL* winter arrives.  But, in the end...does that really matter?  In the past, I've cut the canes down to under a foot in the Spring and the new growth comes out of those canes.   Here, below, are a couple photos of the Thanksgiving Disneyland Roses.  These are dark pink.  Darker than they are most of the growing season.   Here, below, is a look at some of the posts I've written about my experience with Disneyland Roses via this Google Search widget:

With the season hitting Thanksgiving this week, it is time to start making some indoor winter arrangements.  I mean...at least it is in our house.  I've done these the past few years with foraged evergreens and some Trader Joe's foliage plants.  Last year, I went *BIG* with branches and such.  I've learned that smaller can be just as impactful.  Also...mason jars fit into cup holders, so they're super easy to transport.   Here, below is the first one.  This has some faux Winterberries along with a variety of evergreens like Thuja, boxwood, Yew and some sort of short-needled tree like fir.  I also stuck a pinecone in there that I picked up on the sidewalk a few houses up the block. Here, below is a Google search preview widget.  

Welp, dahlia tuber FOMO has struck again.  A few days ago, I showed off my Bonny Blooms tuber order and talked about some of the new (to me) dahlias .  And, earlier this month, I posted about how the marketing emails and TikToks and Instagram posts about tubers were getting me antsy about dahlia tuber ordering .  In that post , I showed a number of dahlias that I thought I'd like to try to grow from various growers.  Those growers included Bonny Blooms.  And, Triple Wren Farms.  And...the place that I've bought my dahlia tubers in the past:  Longfield Gardens .   I've had pretty good luck with their tubers - with one (Maarn) being a dud.  They stood by their warranty and sent another set of Maarn Tubers (after the first ones refused to sprout), but the second set were duds, too. In my first dahlia tuber FOMO post , I included a list of some dahlias that others had recommended.  And, in the Longfield Gardens section, I listed a handf...

Just a few days ago, I posted about how FOMO was arriving when it comes to Dahlia tubers around here.    In the course of doing the research from tuber sellers, I found a sale that was on-going.  That had...some dahlias that I couldn't resist clicking the 'add to cart' button.  Here's what I bought from Bonny Blooms: Some of these were 'planned'.  Others were....impulse buys. Bells Palermo Dahlia Via  Bonny Blooms Bells Palermo .  This one was more expensive than I'm used to, so I bought just one (a mistake, I know).  It is also taller than I prefer.  But, I bought it anway.  Here's what Bonny Blooms has to say about it: A stunning coral to dusty rose gold formal decorative that gradually unfurls around a beautiful green eye. The colors remind me of hazy summer evenings in the Sicilian city of Palermo. Breathtaking at dusk and during late summer sunsets. The plant is strong and productive while the blooms are angled perfectly for design...

Just yesterday, I posted my first Dahlia Tuber Ordering FOMO post about the initial tuber sale s that are about to start online.  This is coming off my second successful season 1 of growing dahlias in the ground for cut flowers.  But, before I can get busy ordering for next year, I have to dig-up and process the tubers that I have on-hand.  This season, we grew A LOT of dahlias.  Here at my house, I grew dahlias in the backyard, sideyard, front yard and IB2DWs.  I also gave away a few tubers - to my mom and sister.  We had something like 20-or-so tubers to start the year.  And, that means...the time has come to try to keep them over the winter.  Last year (my first year), I used the "Saran Wrap Method" to keep my tubers.  And, that seemed to work.  (Or, I just got lucky?).  I only lost a couple to rot with most of the rest coming thru the Winter and sprouting.   Here's a post from early December last year showing the Sara...

Something strange has happened on a one of our large Disneyland Rose bushes on the side of our house:  they are blooming.  At least...a couple of blooms.  And this is after some hard frosts.  This 'large' one is one of the newly planted Disneyland Roses from earlier this Spring.  Here's a post from October that tries to show off the size of these .  They're MUCH bigger than the other ones I've had in the past.    The photos below show a couple of blooms and if you look *behind* the blooms, you'll see some additional Floribunda Rose buds that are hanging around.  What the heck??  I'm attributing this to the little microclimate that exists along the side of our house.  These are tucked in against the house, with southern exposure and about fifteen-feet-away is our neighbor's house.   Disneyland Rose in Bloom After A Frost I didn't cut these off and I stopped pruning back anything on these roses since mid-October.  (I w...

Last week, I received an email from Longfield Gardens with this subject line: Get Ready...Dahlia Pre-Orders Coming Soon! There's nothing quite like FOMO to make a dahlia gardener snap-to.  I haven't even dug out the tubers from our garden this season and we're already talking about pre-orders for next year.  Eek.  I need a plan. Some people have Black Friday.  Others live for 'Cyber Monday'.  But, then...there are dahlia growers who read this email (pasted below) and think:  Here we go. Where do we start?  I think the first place is to think about what worked and what didn't this year. What worked?  Melina Fluer.  Wizard of Oz.  Ivanetti.  Pooh.   What was 'mid' (as the kids say)?  Mystery Fox.  Some Melina Fleurs.    The Pablo Gallery border dahlias (slugs!) What didn't work?  Sweet Nathalie. Also...I need to think about how much MORE room I have for dahlias.  I figure...I'll always 'make roo...

I grew a Melina Fleur dahlia at my Mom's house in a container.  Or...well....she grew it.  It was one of the bulbs that I overwintered last year that I started in a one-gallon nursery container.  She transplanted it into a large pot and grew some cut flowers all season long.   It wasn't protected from the frost, so the foliage died back earlier in November.  When I was over there watching a recent Bears game, I dug the tubers out and brought them home.   My plan is to dig the tubers, let them cure for a couple of days and then...wrap them in Saran Wrap.   Below is a peek at the tubers that came out of her container.  One tuber went into the pot this year.  And, I was able to pull-apart three distinct tubers that (I think??) all appear to be viable (have eyes) on them.  Two are pretty large, one is smaller.  I bought some labels (this year!) and wrapped them around the stems of the tubers.   I'll leave these ...

The season REALLY *is* winding down now.  And the colors of the Melina Fleur dahlias are changing color to be much more middle-pink with little yellow appearing aside from the center seed head.  These three went out the door to folks all at the same time.  They each have some Dusty Miller, Arkansas Bluestar and some fern fronds in them.  Each of them are in thrifted or recycled jars (mason or jelly).  My rough count shows that these are (around) the 40th arrangement of the season.  A few with roses, but mostly these ball, pompon and decorative dahlias.

Yes, the season is ending soon.  And, yes, we still have plenty of flowers.  There's some thinking around 'letting your dahlias go to seed' and stop 'deadheading' them weeks before your first frost.  That way, they can finish up their growing cycle and begin to wind down and put energy back into their tubers.  But, I'm thinking....that's for professional growers.  People who are in the business of selling tubers.  Me?  I'm (apparently) in the business of cutting dahlias and putting them in mason jars along with some other bits of foliage from around the garden.  Here, below, are four recent arrangements.  All the same.  It is, for me, getting a little monotonous.  But, that's not the case for the recipients.  These four went to four different places - some on our block, some as gifts and others to my Mom and Sister.    Speaking of gifts....some good news:  I was able to get back about a half-dozen jars.  I'v...

I planted a pair of Silver Swirl Snowflake Dusty Miller annuals in the newly-created pizza oven bed back in early June.  I had designs of using these for cut flower arrangements.  But, the rabbits had other plans.  Over the course of the Summer, the (dang!) rabbits gnawed at these and ground them down to stubs.  They never got off to any-sort-of-start and the foliage was chronically short. But, recently...something has happened and the rabbits seem to have moved-on and began to leave these alone.  Now, the strap-y foliage is about 4" tall and with a little bit of watering, I'm thinking I can eek some of this white material out before the end of the season.   I'd like to try these again next year, but they won't be in the ground.  I have a different plan for them.  

Below are two photos of the same (recent) Dahlia arrangement featuring some large(r) Melina Fleur Decorative Dahlia blooms and some dark purple Ivanetti Ball Dahlia blooms.  In one photo, you can see the Melina Fleur blooms have taken on a salmon, pink color.  Spinning the (vintage, thrifed, blue-glass) Ball Jar around, you can spy the Ivanetti that have some white creating contrast on the petals.   The season is coming to an end, it seems.  But that also means the flowers are changing colors.  Gone are the yellows of earlier this year with Melina Fleur and here are rosy pinks.  Enjoy these while we can, because frost is a'coming.  Might be next week.  Might be the week after.  Either way...we can't stop it from arriving and killing off the dahlias for the season. 

Below is a photo showing one of the Zinnia blooms vs the ball dahlia Wizard of Oz (for comparison).  I think this might be a Zinnia Dreamland Coral from Northwind Perennial Farm, but I don't seem to have posted about it this year.  This Zinnia is tucked into the original IB2DWs bed and besides watering, I've mostly left it alone all season.   One of the things that I'm guilty of is cutting Zinnias 'too early'.  For these blooms, I opted to leave them on for longer (than I normally would) and this turned into a massive ball-shaped Zinnia bloom.

The blooms keep coming, but this time I'm back posting about the Disneyland Roses.  A few days back, I shared photos of all the blooms on the shrubs and then posted about the large growth some of the new ones experienced this year ( one of the Disneyland Roses is four-feet-tall and probably four-feet across ).  In the photo below, you can see some of the flowers that I 'farmed' (get it...flower farming??) and put in this weird, tall glass.  It has a pedestal and I wanted something long and skinny, so I fished this out of the cabinet and pressed it into service.   One of the big differences that I've begun to observe in cut flowers is how different flowers act differently once in the vase.  For the most part, Dahlias mostly stop changing, once they're cut and put in an arrangement.  But, these Disneyland Roses? They keep changing.  Opening up and becoming prettier every single day they are around.  Until...they start to drop their petals....

Another day, another dahlia cut flower arrangement.  The usual suspects:  Melina Fleur, Wizard of Oz, Avanetti, Mystery Fox.  Along with some Autumn Fern fronds, Garden Ghost Artemesia and a Lucky Charm Anemone stem.  All tucked into a white Milk Glass vase.  This one was put together very quickly and sent out the door to Nat's good friend for her birthday.  

Yesterday, I posted a Google Gemini AI-created video short of some dahlia arrangements .  Today, above, you can see the full photo of all four arrangements.  All similar, but a little different.  In thrifted, Goodwill vases.  One is in a thrifted Bears glass.  These went to four different homes over the weekend.   In these are various ball, decorative and pompon dahlias:  Avanetti, Wizard of Oz, Melina Fleur and Mystery Fox.  Along with some Dusty Miller and Autumn Ferns.