Why I Oughta...

Dahlia season started early in 2026.  With a single, pink bloom of a Wizard of Oz dahlia.  This post is going up two weeks after I snipped this bloom.  So, dahlia season started in June 2026. Last year, my earliest blooming dahlia was Wizard of Oz with a bloom exactly one-year-ago today .  It was productive all the way until (at least) mid-October.   This year, I planted two Wizard of Oz tubers.  #20 and #40 on my full list .  One of them - in the Pizza Oven West bed has bloomed .  Sort-of in the 'crotch' of some of the stems.   The blooms on Wizard of Oz Pompon dahlia are pale pink with yellow centers.  This is such a welcome site as we enter the heat of the Summer: Wizard of Oz Dahlia - pale pink bloom with yellow centers. When I say that this first bloom grew in the 'crotch' of a couple of stems, the two photos below shows what I mean.  The first photo is from a couple of days before I put it.  While the second pho...

This is the fourth dahlia tuber posting this year.  First 17.  Then 15 more.  Then six to get to 38 .  Today, I'm showing the location of four other ones (three that are new and one was a replacement for a dud) to get my total up to 42 dahlias. This post is going up in mid-June, but back in late May, I added four more dahlias to three spots in the garden. Three (in purple) went in the Pizza Oven East.  One went IB2DWs down by the sidewalk (also in purple): 42 Tubers in:  27 new (to me) with 15 legacy dahlias (Melina Fleur x 5, Ivanetti x 2, Mystery Fox x 2, Ivanetti x 2, Wizard of Oz x 2, Sweet Nathalie, Pooh). Now with 38 tubers in the ground, here's the latest recap:   28 new (to me) or trialing with 10 legacy dahlias (Melina Fluer x 5, Ivanetti x 2, Sweet Nathalie, Wizard of Oz, Pooh). I have now planted a number of multiples:   5:  (1) Melina Fleur 4:  N/A (0) 3:  (2) Burlesca , Great Silence 2:  (12) Crichton Hon...

I posted two different sets of photos and details of the dahlia tubers that I've stuck in the garden in various spots.  First was 17 tubers.  Then, a post showing 15 additional ones .  That made my total:  32 dahlias in the ground.  25 new (to me) or trialing with 7 legacy dahlias (Melina Fluer x 3, Ivanetti x 2, Sweet Nathalie and Wizard of Oz). This post is going up in mid-June, but back in late May, I added six more dahlias to three spots in the garden. These six, plus the previous 32 = 38 dahlias in the ground.  So far.  Here's an annotated plot of the locations with the latest ones in green:   South Sun Wall 33. Pooh This is a spot that I've grown Melina Fleur each of the past two seasons.  Last year, these Pooh dahlias got pretty tall, so being close to the fence might give me more support options. Under The Elm 34. Blue Wish This was the largest of the dahlia plants left in my home nursery (my patio), so in it went.  Without rabbi...

I started planting dahlias in May and posted the first seventeen a few days ago.  In that post, I showed the locations and talked about how most of them (14 of the 17) were new to me varieties with just three legacy dahlias (Melina Fleur, Ivanetti and Sweet Nathalie).   Today, I'm showing the next round of dahlias that went in the ground.  These were planted in the second to last week of May - the day after the first seventeen went in. I planted them in three spots:  Pizza Oven West, IB2DWs and the back of the Island Bed.  Here's the updated planting map with the latest 15 tubers in blue. Here is a breakdown of what is planted in each of the three beds: Pizza Oven West 18.  Burlesca 19.  St. Martin 20.  Wizard of Oz 21.  Rip City 22.  Creme de Casis 23.  Melina Fleur Below is a look at these six.  The Melina Fleur is still in the container.  But, all of them are protected by rabbit cages.  For now.   I...

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...

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...

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,...