Dahlias 2018

This year around I figured I shouldn’t wait until the end of the season to start posting about our dahlias. They are lovely and extraordinary botanical specimens that should be enjoyed at the height of the harvest, albeit virtually. In truth, I’m trying to be more diligent about communicating our projects to a wider audience. Over the past year and a half, I’ve been on the sidelines for lots of different reasons and consuming everyone’s else knowledge and creativity. Now I feel like it’s high time for me to start contributing to the community.

As a start, you’ll see that I’ve posted pictures of some of the varieties we grow together with their names! Honestly, you should really see the backlog of dahlia photos that I have on our hard drives since our early days of growing. I’ve kept meticulous photo records, although none are labelled and I’ve sort of lost track of the names — oh well.

A few growing notes this year. The weather has undoubtedly been atypical with a wettish June, dry July, super-wet and HOT August and a hot September thus far (except for today and this past weekend). The dahlias struggled and have stayed pretty short compared to a few years ago when the plants towered by multiple feet above me. I’m not sure why. It could be because we’ve cut down some very large pine trees that were blocking the morning light and hence the dahlias no longer needed to stretch for the light. Or perhaps the underground stream that ran underneath the beds have since dried up. Another possible culprit is planting in the same beds every year. However, we do amend the beds with fresh compost at the beginning of each season.

At any rate, I’m starting to grow other flowers in addition to the dahlias. This year, I grew scoop scabiosas which were expensive to procure (and the grower messed up order and I ended up with more scabiosas than I wanted). Next week, I’m getting three trays of cold hardy annuals — delphinium, snapdragons and nigella — that I’ll put into our raised beds. And later this fall, we should be getting a whole bunch of tulips. We planted 500 last year but only 30 or so actually made it through. The beds got too wet and the bulbs rotted out. I’m trying my luck again with the tulips but will plant them on higher ground.

This is the update so far and, now, onto the pictures!

Dahlias - Late Summer Favorites

In a blink of an eye, January turned into November and we're at the end of dahlia season.  

It feels like yesterday that I was anxiously hunting down dahlia varieties and making lofty growing plans.  Pete and I planted over 250 tubers by mid-May and had big hopes for a wetter year compared to 2016.  And, boy, did it rain!  It rained a little too much in beginning which caused some of tubers to rot and stunted the growth of over half our plants.  

Nonetheless, the plants had a huge growth spurt late July and August and we had a fantastic growing year (our best since 2014).  Since September, we cut buckets and buckets of blooms and so many that we had to give away bunches to our neighbors.  Admittedly, by the end of October, we looked forward to the killing frost that never came.  Last weekend, we decided to cut down all of our plants; bloom production fell off with cooler temps and less daylight.  Next weekend, we're going to start digging and dividing the tubers.  

The end of dahlia season is always bittersweet.  There was never enough time to weed, stake and deadhead, but I so miss their sunny faces.  We endured lots of long, Friday night drives to western Mass from the city just so I could have quiet, early mornings to harvest.  Pete did his best to capture our growing season so I hope you enjoy these images.

- BB

Southwest USA

I'm trying to keep up with monthly blog posts and I don't want to write about flowers.  Sometimes I get tired of flowers.  Flowers will pretty much be my life with weddings, the upcoming holidays over the course of this month and next, and growing season is just about to start.

Last August, I won two permits to visit the Wave at Coyote Buttes on the border of Arizona and Utah.  Once word of that spread around my family, my short trip to Arizona became a week-long mini-van adventure with my parents, niece and nephew.  We actually did a similar trip a really long time ago; I think 2006(?) when my niece and nephew were a lot younger (and cuter) so I did want to bring them back to some of the same locations. 

I'm always the planner for family trips and family trips really difficult to plan for a number reasons -- fitness levels, different interests, sleep schedules, etc.  How did I cope with it all? 

• rented a car that sat more people than the group size; in our case, we rented a mini-van that sat 7 for 6 people and stuffed it chock-full of snacks and water
   
• had at least one activity planned for each day and left the rest of the day for downtime, a nap or to revisit a spot (particularly important for landscape photography);
   
• each day I communicated our plans and, in the evenings, discussed the next day's plan and wake-up times; I was literally the tour guide
   
• reserved hotel suites or apartments with kitchens and cooked our own food; everyone was happier because their diet remained the same.  some nights we ate out but no one was actually happy about it

Where did we visit?  In Page, Arizona, we went to Horseshoe Bend, Lake Powell, Upper and Lower Antelope Canyon, the Wave at Coyote Buttes and Buckskin Gulch.  In Utah, we did Zion National Park (hiked the Narrows and did some nighttime photography) and sunrise at Bryce Canyon (I still remember the killer headache from waking up so damn early). 

In the end, the kids and my parents had a wonderful time.  Pete still brags that he took the mini-van to 90mph while my dad was in the car, blissfully unaware (or so Pete thinks...). 

Upper Antelope Canyon

Upper Antelope Canyon

Upper Antelope Canyon

Entrance of The Wave

The Wave

Amphitheater, The Wave

Bruce the Shark, Lower Antelope Canyon

Rocky Mountain Sunset, Lower Antelope Canyon

Lower Antelope Canyon

Bryce Canyon

The Watchman, Zion National Park

Zion National Park

Zion National Park

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About that Time...

It's about that time of year when I shift gears from buying mainly imported flowers to using locally grown stuff, particularly stuff from my own "backyard".  My cutting garden isn't really in my backyard but a solid three hours away in good old Massachusetts. 

I'm behind schedule with seed-starting, but that's nothing new really.  Truth be told, all the seed-growing happens in my tiny studio apartment.  There's never enough light nor air circulation (sigh).  Plant health aside, sometimes I struggle with living with grow lights and the smell of wet soil ALL THE TIME.  When I've done this in the past, there were times I'd look up into my apartment from the sidewalk and I think "what are those people growing up there?"....  Just flowers, people. 

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Orange Crush

I'm short on words this weekend so here are some images from my flowering today.  Around this time of year, the product of Japan is simply the best.  I've used Japanese sweetpeas, ranunculus and spirea (two types) together with Icelandic poppies and narcissus from Holland.

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Orchids

Now that Pete and I have put traveling on a short hiatus, I've been using my weekends in NYC to practice my flowering -- whether experimenting with new color combinations, new flower varieties and/or new shapes -- and making pho, but that's a story for another time.  I've been thinking about striped phalaenopsis orchids for a while now (ever since G.Page posted a picture on Instagram) so I braced an early morning train ride and walk this Saturday through the blizzard.  (Snow doesn't bother me as much as the weirdos who hang out on the train platform during the early hours of the day.)

I'd write more on this post, but the premiere of the X-Files is about to start and my inner nerd is just about dying right now. 

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Patagonia

I’m back. 

I’ll fast forward through the summer to get to the meat of this post.  It was a magical dahlia blur.  We planted.  We harvested.  We drove weekend after weekend from NYC to Western Mass and back.  A killing frost happened.  And then we went on a two-week vacation to Patagonia. 

We liked Patagonia a lot.  So much so that I’ve been talking endlessly about my time there and convinced a few friends to do the trip.  One of them asked for my itinerary and since I’ve written her a very long email about it, it would also make sense to share it with my readers.  If I can convince one of you, it would be a small victory. I won’t kid that some physical fitness was/is needed; I did a fair amount of conditioning in the two months leading up to the trip.  

Most days we hiked devastating long trails with heavy backpacks but our days always ended beer, local wine and/or Austral beer and a hot shower.  There was an early morning thrown in there for a spectacular photo opportunity.  Otherwise since we pre-arranged our lodging, we took our time everyday to enjoy the scenery and take an endless amount of selfies that I won’t be sharing here. 

Itinerary.  Our basic route was this:

• There: New York - Santiago - Punta Arena - Puerto Natales - El Calafate - El Chalten
• And Back: El Calafate - El Chalten - Puerto Natales - Punta Arena - Santiago - New York

While in Chile, we hiked the W trek, starting from west to east. People prefer doing west to east as their packs get lighter and the last day of the trek was the hardest.

Days 1-3: Mainly for traveling, logistics and getting sorted out (can likely head out to the park on the morning of Day 3 if you’re short on time)

• Day 1: Overnight flight from New York to Santiago (8pm flight arriving at 7:35am)
   
• Day 2: Transfer from Santiago to Punta Arena (10:35am flight arriving at 1:35pm), then took 5:15pm bus from Punta Arena airport to Puerto Natales and arrived at 8:15pm to check into our hotel
   
• Day 3: Hung around Puerto Natales to pick up supplies and catch a 3pm daily talk about the W trek at the Erratic Rock, mainly to get additional information

Days 4-8: W trek (I may have the mileage wrong, so double check on other sources please)

• Day 4:  Lake Pehoe Catamaran - Refugio Paine Grande - Refugio Grey/Glacier Grey.  Total route: about 3.5 hours, 11km and really windy.  Took 7am bus from Puerto Natales to Torres del Paine National Park; bus makes three stops in the park and we got off at Lago Pehoe to catch a catamaran to begin our trek.  Catamaran runs two stops daily, and we caught the 12pm departure.  Catamaran dropped us off at Refugio Paine Grande and then hiked to Refugio Grey where we spent the night. 
   
• Day 5: Refugio Grey / Glacier Grey - Hanging Bridge (optional) - Refugio Paine Grande.  Total route with the detour to Hanging Bridge: about 5.5-7.5 hours, 11+ km and really windy.  Got up early and hiked back to Refugio Paine Grande where we stayed the night; in hindsight, I should have hiked to the Hanging Bridge which I think was another 1-2 hours north of Refugio Grey and then head towards Refugio Paine Grande because the walk back is so short and we just spent the afternoon drinking beer, eating Pringles and staring at each other.
   
• Day 6: Refugio Paine Grande - Campamento Italiano - Mirador Britanico - Refugio Cuernos.  Total route: about 8.5-9 hours, 24.1km.  This is a big, long day.  Not as windy as Days 4 and 5.  Dramatic change in scenery, great views and very challenging. Once you reach Campamento Italiano, you can leave your big backpack by the ranger station (put in a garbage bad or cover it with a rain cover in case it rains) and pack a smaller pack with lunch, camera, flashlight and rain jacket and head up to the French Valley to the first mirador, or viewpoint.  If you have the energy, go beyond the first mirador to Britanico (last 30 minutes is somewhat steep).  From that viewpoint you get an awesome view of the valley, the mountain tops and all the glacial lakes.  Head back down to Refugio Cuernos where you’ll stay the night.  There are flush toilets at Campamento Italiano, but bring toilet paper and Purell. 
   
• Day 7:  Refugio Cuernos - Refugio Chileno.  Total route:  about 4-5 hours, 16.5km.  Nothing really remarkable about this side of the trek; I felt like it was mainly going from Point A to Point B.  However, there isn’t much water at the beginning of the trek so fill up your bottle before you leave.  Go to bed early as you’ll need to get up at 3:30am for sunrise at the las Torres.  Alternatively, you can get free camping at Campamento Torres which puts you within 45-60 minutes of the base of las Torres; staying at Chileno would extend your hike by another 1.5 hours but it’s fairly easy walking.  However, you’ll need to get to Campamento Torres early to reserve a camp site.  Some people also recommend that you hike up to the base on this day in case bad weather is scheduled for the next day so that you can see las Torres at least once.  We did not.
   
• Day 8:  Refugio Chileno - Mirador Base las Torres - Hotel Torre.  Total route: about 5 hours, 10.5km.  So we got up at 3:30am to catch sunrise.  The route takes 2.5 hours from Refugio Chileno to the base of las Torres.  It’s easy hiking until the last 45 minutes and it gets pretty steep and you’ll have to scramble over boulders.  I’m not going to lie: this part is really effing hard.  But it was so worth it.  You should pack a light backpack but bring snacks with you to eat while you watch the granite towers glow red from the early morning sun.  It lasts literally for 15-25 minutes and then you head back down and get some breakfast at Refugio Chileno, hang out a bit, pack up the rest of your stuff and then head to Hotel Torre.  At Hotel Torre, go get some lunch and order the lamb.  SO GOOD!  You then catch a shuttle bus that takes you back to where you entered the park, find the bus you have tickets for and head back to Puerto Natales.  Once you back at Puerto Natales, stay the night.

Day 9: Back to NYC or to Argentinian Patagonia via El Calafate to El Chalten.  In the morning, you can catch a bus for El Calafate, Argentina or back to Punta Arenas for the airport if you’re ending your trip.  We went to El Calafate with the end goal of being in El Chalten by the end of Day 9. El Calafate is ok; we thought it would make some sense to spend an afternoon to get money and get something to eat.  Getting money there was pointless since all the ATMs ran out of cash :( and food was expensive.  We also read reviews to leave Calafate ASAP, with which we kind of agreed. There was nothing to do.

Day 10:  El Chalten. Laguna del Los Tres.  Total route: 8-9 hours, 20km.  The town is situated at the base of the all the hiking trails, so no car rental is necessary.  We hiked the Lago del Los Tres trail, which was generally pretty easy except for the first 1.5 km which is uphill since you need to get over a ridge, but then up to km 9 the trail is relatively flat and then 9-10 is straight uphill and as challenging as going to the base of las Torres.  Again worth it and look for the blue lake.  BTW, if in the morning it looks like a cloud front is coming in, leave this trail for another day otherwise the clouds will spoil the view.

Day 11: El Chalten.  Laguna Torre.  Total route: 8-9 hours, 20km. Much easier hike than Laguna del Los Tres.  Pretty views, but we had cloud cover on our day there.

Day 12: El Chalten.  Chorrillo del Salto. Total route: 2 hours, don’t know the distance.  Very easy hike after the other two trails and my knees needed a break.  Waterfall at the end. 

Day 13: El Chalten - El Calafate - Perito Moreno Glacier.  Got up early to catch a 7:30am bus to El Calafate.  At the bus station, we got tickets to see the Perito Moreno Glacier.  If you never seen a glacier I suggest going.  Maybe take a boat cruise or a guided glacier trek.  We didn’t do that and the experience was ok but pricey.  We stayed in El Calafate that night.

Day 14:  El Calafate - Puerto Natales.  Caught a bus back to Puerto Natales, nothing special about this day other than relaxing, sending postcards and buying souvenirs.

Day 15:  Puerto Natales - Punta Arenas - Santiago - New York.  Traveled home

Lodging:

• Puerto Natales: Singing Lamb Hostel ($80/night; request bedroom on second floor) and expensive option is Hotel Singular
• W Trek - Refugio Grey and Refugio Paine Grande: www.verticepatagonia.com; can either choose camping or dorm style room (shared with strangers, bathrooms are all shared)
• W Trek - Refugio Cuernos and Refugio Chileno: http://www.fantasticosur.co
• El Chalten:  Chalten Suites or Hosteria Senderos.  I really liked Chalten Suites
• El Calafate: Hosteria Miyazato Inn which was inexpensive and good; they were kind enough to make breakfast for us at 5am! 

Restaurants:

• Puerto Natales: Cafe Kaiken, Cangrejo Rojo, Angelica’s, Picada de Carlitos (local diner) and I hear that Afrigonia and the restaurant at the Singular are supposed to be excellent
• El Chalten: La Tapera, La Vineria, Don Guerra
• El Calafate: nothing memorable, sorry!

Bus:

• Chile: www.bussur.com
• Argentina: http://www.plataforma10.com/ar/en/bus-tickets

Must-eats:

• Lamb
• Steak (particularly lomo a lo pobre, which is an egg with sauteed onions over filet mignon (lomo) and comes with potatoes)
• Centolla (crab from that region)
• Empanadas

I was not a huge fan of (sorry to offend, but just my preferences):

• Pizza no matter how much they tell you it’s good, it’s terrible for us New Yorkers
• Bread no matter how freshly baked was always dry

Dahlias, Again.

we're known for our dahlias in our little section of western massachusetts. and sometimes we host the local garden club to come view our efforts. do i raise them for sale? for my floral arrangements? for sport? perhaps yes to all the above.

dahlias are one of my favorite flowers to grow. they're dependable. they bloom a ton. they kind of take care of themselves (after i tie them back to a stake).

this season, pete and i thought it would be fun to document our growing process. we planted 161 plants this season. it was suppose to be 160 but then i realized i forgot to plant a variety so 161 it is. i made room for more varieties by cutting back on the cafe au lait dahlias. gasp!  it was very hard to do so but as pretty as the CALs are, they are finicky to keep once cut.  

i posted my growing tips last year so i won't go into much detail this time around.  this year, however, i did more planning around my dahlia bed layout and inventory ahead of planting which saved a lot of time. for me, much of the process (and time) is figuring out what to plant where.  once i had a plan, it was quick work to get the dahlias planted.    

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Catch-Up + Re-Cap

honestly, i haven't really been into blogging lately.  there have been lots of distractions (a.k.a. sh*t - my euphemism for everything good and bad).  instagram has been my lazy way of countering my lack of writing anything at all.  since my last update, there have been numerous flower projects that pete and i have done but in my sh*t bubble i somehow have reasoned not to download and document.  

for instance, our dahlia beds, which seems to be known town-wide, is something i should write about and i will.  i'm not sure whether i feel proud of our efforts or embarrassed that my obsession is so completely out there.  or the wedding that pete and i did in may.  i took step-by-step pictures to show my sister, who generally helps me with our events but couldn't make it this time and which i would love to share.  or all the other flower deliveries that we were fortunate to have (actually you get to see those; they're in the below slideshow).  

i guess this is a long-winded way of saying that my lazy self needs to start posting.  

i never did post about iceland

i normally try to keep my photo projects separate from my flowers, so excuse me this time. i'm a bit tired now although wedding season is about to start. weekly deliveries, valentine's day, more weekly deliveries had somewhat taken a toll on me earlier this year. and then i had to think about the unsavory side of running a business -- bookkeeping, paying sales tax, filing income taxes and then digesting my net income for all of 2014 (ugh). why can't life be about playing with pretty flowers, planting my garden and breathing fresh air?

somewhere between all of that, pete and i made an escape to iceland for our spring break.  witnessing the northern lights have always been high up on my bucket list.  and it's still on my bucket list.... (we never did see it and the week after we left there was an epic solar storm - such is life.)

yeah, we went to iceland instead of somewhere warm.

i'm not much of a beach person.  actually, i cringe at the thought of it -- sand in my bathing suit, salt water drying my hair, sun damage on my skin, and absolute boredom from relaxation (i'm sooo my mother's daughter).  so off we went to iceland with wide-eyed hopes of seeing something truly remarkable.  and we did.  we loved every moment of it, including the hail storms, fierce winds, cloudy days, snow, rain, etc. except for the moment that i dropped my brand new camera into a glacier lagoon. we spent most days waking up early for sunrises and staying up late to catch the northern lights (that happened somewhere above the cloud cover). between all of that were naps and long bus rides and a lot of food.  i'm currently working off my spring weight.  

we are going back sometime in the near future, at least TWICE.  we never did see the northern lights although my camera was able to capture something my eyes couldn't see.  and how wonderful it would be to visit during midnight summer, particularly with lupine in bloom.  

valentine's day is now over

phew, the valentine's day rush is always both exhausting and rewarding. i had poor pete running throughout all of manhattan to get our friday deliveries done. have i ever mentioned how much i love the flowers available during the winter? certain blooms are local but most are imported and some of my favorite are the ones imported from japan. while pricey, japanese stems are top notch and long lasting so definitely worth the splurge. and the colors they produce can be so breath-taking, like the orange-salmon-coral ranunculus and the rust colored sweet pea. all my plans went out the door when i saw them and i knew i needed to change course.  

a delivery week in review

i certainly didn't expect so many delivery orders this week, but certainly glad they happened!  i'm in the process of working out the details of my online shop and getting the orders are very helpful in terms of planning. definitely a big thank you to my customers.

arrangement ranunculus, hyacinths and local anemones (which simply are the best)

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arrangement of poppies, ranunculus and hyacinths

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an arrangement of mokura orchids, narcissus, parrot tulips and ranunculus with pops of mini sized oranges (or, maybe, kumquats)

new year, new home

flowers in celebration of my new blog home....  

i've had a long internal debate whether i should continue blogging on the blogger platform.  a bit self-evident, but i chose to move my content to the squarespace platform.  i hope this change will make managing my content and, hopefully, an online shop (!!!) easier.  yes, i have a goal of growing my website more and adding a shop for local flower deliveries and photographs from my travels.   

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in case you're curious, this pretty blue vase is made by jen kuroki (www.jenkuroki.com or her etsy shop, lovebugkiko).  i may have to buy a few more....

holiday season

it's funny how fast time flies from the end of fall to the new year.  a few months ago, we were completely consumed with packing for our vacation to myanmar (pics which i've barely started to edit) and came back to digging dahlia tubers, then packing the dahlia tubers and then thanksgiving.  after that, christmas shopping, holiday parties, etc.  all throughout those weeks, pete and i were greedily watching episodes upon episodes of, first, house of cards and then breaking bad.  (now i remember why i swore off television.)  and sometime this past week, i finally woke up to this serial phenomenon and became intensely hooked.  so anyways, that is what's been going on with me....

the last of dahlias

cafe au lait dahlias with blushing bride protea, astilbe, hydrangea and snowberries

we've prematurely ended our dahlia season this past weekend and are a bit sad about it.  it's tough to let the frost get them but feels even worse when we take our shears to some pretty healthy and productive plants.  it's not for nothing.  we're going away at the end of october and the timing of everything dictated that we cut them down when we did.  next weekend we'll be back to dig up the tubers and dry them in the basement for a week to toughen up the skins.  And the weekend after we'll pack them up for winter storage.

this dahlia thing is completely addictive.  we've decided to add another bed to the dahlia patch and perhaps (gasp) grow less cafe au laits.  trust.  i love cafe au laits, but a few of them can produce a ton of blooms (they're perhaps some of the more productive ones) and there are lots of new varieties to try.  one day i'll have a field large enough for a few hundred cafe au laits.

black widow

i had a few late nights already (didn't the week just begin?) and about to fade.  i'm trying really hard to keep up with the blog now that instagram has completely dominated how i access social media.

the arrangement from this weekend was loaded with red and wine colored dahlias and wild grapes that i foraged from some brush on the edge of the field.  i'll remember next time to wear boots or whatever because flip flops just does not provide enough foot protection (if something is tickling my feet, i just refuse to look down; yup, things don't exist if i ignore it).  there are some crab apples tucked in there somewhere, but admittedly the grapes were the real showstopper.  i'm calling this one black widow, because it's dark, vamp-y and i'm obsessed with that black widow song.

anyways, dahlias are still blooming strong but we're cutting everything down next weekend.  normally i wait until the frost gets them, but this year, pete and i are going away in early november and there just won't be enough time to get the tubers dug up and put away before then.  so i apologize now if i spam your instagram feed with dahlias.  it will be over soon...until next august....

 

fancy dahlias

i suppose this is my annual cafe au lait dahlia post -- cafe au laits are the fanciest of the fancy.  they bloom big and plentiful, so much so that i have a hard time keeping up.  i have 20 of them in my dahlia patch.  why so many?  unfortunately the shelf life on these girls aren't so terrific compared to other varieties so i keep plenty on hand for back-up.  they're a terrible tease really -- their petals unfurl so perfectly and then they fall apart within three days. ("...it's like i loved you so much and now i just hate you....")  if you readers have any advice on them, please let me know.

it's been a while since i made a large arrangement for no reason at all.  perhaps in the city, i really don't like spending lots of $$$ on foliage and foraging in urban areas isn't my thing (i've seen rats running in and out of gardens at all hours of the day and it's enough to deter me from even getting a community plot).  in the country, however, things grow wild and i get to wander around the edge of the woods to find material.  i didn't stray into the woods because there were still too many mosquitoes and i still can't tell the difference between poison ivy and wild raspberries / blackberries.

anyways, back to the flowers.  everything in this arrangement is sourced within 100 yards of each other.  it's a funny, but good, feeling to harvest locally.  yeah, i know, these words are overused, over-marketed, over-everything but it's true! this arrangement includes cafe au lait dahlias, other lavender / purple dahlias (i have at least 5 varieties in there), hydrangea, birch branches, pokeweed and a few gomphrena and cosmos.

end of summer, beginning of dahlias

dahlias in this buckets are cafe au lait, chilson's pride, hamilton lillian,  otto's thrill, kidd's climax and kelgai ann

it's always sad to say good-bye to summer and this one felt particularly short-lived.  but for the past few years the end of summer has been greeted with dahlias and my dahlias are blooming in earnest.  

a reader emailed me about my dahlia garden and asked for tips and resources.  i suppose there could be one or two people out there who are also curious, so i've copied and pasted my response (more or less) for reference:

"I order my tubers from Endless Summer Flower Farm in Camden, ME or Swan Island Dahlias in OR.  Their tubers are great. This year I've planted tubers from Dan's Dahlias and Old House Gardens. They seem pretty good at the time of planting and they all (but one) sprouted (likely my fault since I never opened the delivery boxes until the day before planting).  I do save my tubers at the end of such season which is how I now have such large dahlias beds. This year I needed to expand to 2 more beds!

As for growing resources, I did some google searching to read about specific issues (earwigs or Japanese beetles) but the most comprehensive is a little purple booklet that Swan Island Dahlias sends with its orders. They also have the same information available on their website.  I also email the tuber suppliers themselves with questions.

Here's what I do:

- in the spring I have someone till the beds and add compost; I'm not sure how much the guy uses since I'm never around when he does it. But I ordered 4 cubic yards for 4 beds that are 25' by 4'.  I'm not even sure how far he tills into the land either.

- I plant tubers generally in two rows. Although in some spots I'll add a third row because I have way too many tubers.  However, I try not to overcrowd the plants (tends to yield weak stems when I have done so previously).

- I stake each one at the time of planting and then throughout the season I tie the plants to its stake.  I also add a handful of bone meal in each hole (I have small hands though).

- I apply a foliar spray of fish emulsion/kelp mix and aerated compost tea every other week. I'm not sure this helps but have read that it does.

- I find myself weeding up into July but allow the weeds to get big enough to pull. Now that my plants are large (now 3' or taller) the weeding is very light.

- The location where the dahlias are growing gets at most 4 hours of really hot sun (10am - 2pm) from June to early September.  It gets so hot that the plants are wilting by noon. They seem to do fine but I'm convinced I would have more flowers with more sunlight. There are two very large pine trees that block out the morning sun. The trees are on the property we're leasing and we aren't allowed to cut them :(

- Toward the end of season, I put a frost cloth over the dahlias at night just in case. However, by last week of October, I let the frost kill the plants and I cut off the plants, leaving 6-8 inches of the stems.  I cover any holes with aluminum foil to keep water from getting into the tubers. I pull the tubers out 1-2 weeks later and wash the dirt off and dip them into a bleach solution. I then leave the tubers to dry in the basement to develop "skin" and then divide and wrap individually in plastic wrap. This year I'm not going to do the plastic wrap bit because of timing of other obligations.  Instead, I plan to put them in cardboard with peat moss." 

i had a random thought about japanese beetles when discussing how to deal with a friend's wasp problem.  i remembered while traveling in cambodia we had these electrified tennis rackets to swat at mosquitoes and the static electricity would kill them on contact.  the japanese beetles have been terrible this year and they're still around and feasting away on my garden so obviously i ordered a zapper racket from amazon to try on the beetles.  picking off beetles and drowning them in soapy water is easy enough, albeit gross.  but imagine zapping them in mid-flight?  yes, evil maniacal laugh is happening as i'm typing this.  hopefully there will be a few beetles left to get!

hamilton lillian dahlia

hillcrest suffusion dahlia

left - razz-ma-razz dahlia, right - prince noir dahlia

pop talk dahlia

tempest dahlia

sonic bloom dahlia

these dahlias are not supposed to be > 8' tall!

brushstrokes dahlia and the requisite bumble bee shot

p+v wedding

bridal bouquet of juliet garden roses, louise augusta garden roses, cymbeline garden roses, cafe au lait dahlias, peach dahlias, double click cosmos, quickfire hydrangeas, hot biscuit amaranths, snowberries, bay leaves and jasmine vine

pete and i did a small wedding this past weekend up in the boston area.  i love late summer flowers and the highlight was being able to use flowers grown by grace at fivefork farms.  her flowers are a must when i'm doing events in the boston area.

bridal bouquet of juliet garden roses, louise augusta garden roses, cymbeline garden roses, cafe au lait dahlias, peach dahlias, double click cosmos, quickfire hydrangeas, hot biscuit amaranths, snowberries, bay leaves and jasmine vine

bridal bouquet of juliet garden roses, louise augusta garden roses, cymbeline garden roses, cafe au lait dahlias, peach dahlias, double click cosmos, quickfire hydrangeas, hot biscuit amaranths, snowberries, bay leaves and jasmine vine

a pair of bridesmaids' bouquets

we opted not to have table centerpieces given the family-style nature of the dinner and went with a few tall arrangements -- one by the entrance and another by the photo booth.  yup and all those amaranths (the gold and the green hanging dreadlocks) were from fivefork.

and finally congrats, p+v!

revere beach

come meet this sweetie-pie and her mommy and daddy over at photos.