Why I Oughta...

I walked out to the back and noticed that one of our dahlia plants is in RAPID DECLINE.  I mean...rapid.  It went from (I'm pretty sure) totally healthy what you see in the photo below overnight.  It is wilted with very little rigidity in the plant everywhere.   This happened before in this bed, but the dahlia recovered very quickly.  What I figured out (then) was that the poor soil conditions (this is a ton of clay) along with a period of heavy rain caused the tubers to drown and become overwatered.  Is that what is happening here? Or is it a pest issue like spider mites?   Or, something else.  Like a disease? I'm treating this two ways (right now). First...I dug up some of the soil around the tuber to try to help dry out the clay and let the tuber breath a little bit.  See below: Second, I'm seeing some tiny webbing (and what I think are Spider Mites) near the top of the plant.  So, I've applied a heavy dose of mite-icide to ...

Another day, another mixed dahlia arrangement .  This one (below) includes some larger blooms from the Melina Fleur plants, a bunch of Ivanetti dark purple blooms and some smaller Wizard of Oz ball dahlias along with a little bit of eucalyptus, some rosemary, Dusty Miller and the Lucky Charm Anemones that are thriving right now in the back garden. The tags that show off the full catalog of dahlia arrangements include [ countertop flowers ], [ dahlia arrangement ] and [ arrangement ].  

The most-recent set of cut flower arrangements include a round-up of what is coming into bloom in late July.  This post is going up in early August, but these vases were built in late July.  The first one features some dark red (almost maroon) Mystery Fox dahlia blooms, Oklahoma Salmon Zinnias , Limelight Hydrangeas, Polka dot plant foligae and some upright stalks of Garden Ghost Artemesia.     The second one includes a couple of Wizard of Oz Ball dahlias , some Pablo Gallery Border Dahlias , a bunch of Disneyland Roses and some (of my current go-to accent pieces) like the white Polka Dot plant foliage and sprigs of the white Garden Ghost Artemesia .   Both are in thrifted vases.  My focus at the Goodwill is on small vases that will fit in a cupholder of the car and are priced at 99 cents.  Like shooting fish in a barrel.  

This is the first year that I'm growing dahlias that are taller than say...30".  That means that they all need to be staked or supported in some way.  I *thought* I had done a pretty good job of staking everything and supporting the various stems and stalks with padded garden wire, but...for the Mystery Fox dahlia in our backyard...I was...well...wrong.   On a recent morning, I came out back to discover that the dahlia had split open and part of it was laying on the ground.  Eeek!  I picked it up, realized it wasn't going to be 're-connected' and cut it off cleanly.   I brought it in, shortened the stem and stuck it in a jar of water.  The head is filled with five-or-six un-opened blooms and one good-sized one.   Lesson learned.  And, not a total plant-killer.  At least we get to enjoy this branch/stem/stalk with blooms inside for a little while.  

A few days ago, I showed the first cut flower from the set of Pablo Gallery Border dahlias that I put in the garden this year (in the backyard near the patio) and talked about how there were more blooms approaching.   There are five border dahlia tubers in this corner bed that wrap around the corner.  They are sitting on the 'other side' of a trio of Karl Foerster Grasses.    Below is a look at the current state of these five border dahlias.  Four of them have buds with one being a little bit further behind.  Three of them are home to opened-up multi-color dahlias.  These are coral-colored with some reds and yellows in them: The blooms are good-sized.  Below is a photo showing one of them with my hand as a reference for size: Pablo Gallery has won the the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit - so it is a proven and prolific bloomer.  I'm going to keep dead-heading these to see if we can get a bumper crop.  Based on...

The dahlias have only been outside, planted in the beds, for about five weeks.  They went in the ground the first week in June.  Here's a post showing the containers of tubers that I started indoors in late April .  This year, I've expanded the varieties of Dahlias that we have in the garden by a big number.  Last year, I grew (exclusively) Melina Fluer dahlias and they were great.  So great, in fact, that I went down this "dahlia expansion" path for 2025.  One of the new varieties that we're growing is named Wizard of Oz.  I planted one of these down IB2DWs (near the sidewalk) and the other one languished in the container.  Until just this past week, when I finally stuck it in the front yard .   Wizard of Oz is a pink pompon dahlia. White Flower Farm says that Wizard of Oz ..."features honeycombed, fully double blossoms in a lovely shade of pastel pink. These 2–3″ pompoms make enchanting additions to late summer gardens and flower bou...

A couple weeks ago, I potted up a number of stored and newly purchased Dahlia tubers in one-gallon nursery pots .  All of the stored tubers (Melina Fleur Dahlias) from last year were stored over-winter in Saran Wrap in the garage and a few of them were already showing some growth/sprouts of new growth off the tubers.  That lead to some of them moving fast to show new foliage - above the soil - with new shoots of life.   See below for a few photos of the tubers growing new green growth.   After these put on a couple sets of leaves, I'll move them out of the basement and into the screened porch.  There, they'll get A LOT more light and a tiny bit of wind (when I open the windows) and can continue their growing process.  Once they put on another set of leaves out there, I'll begin to harden them off by putting them outside for an ever-increasing amount of time.   That means they'll be in the porch for 4-5 days, then begin to harden-off for ...