
There are so many things I love about fall. I could dedicate multiple posts to the subject. Let's do. And let's start with everyone's favorite renegade flower-the dahlia.
Last spring, no back up, last fall I laid eyes on the most gorgeous dahlias I'd ever seen. I quizzed the owner of these flowers and she told me they came from her neighbors' yard. This is a neighbor I need to be friends with, I told myself. A few hints here and there and next thing you know I'm meeting this neighbor about his flowers. I assumed it was a hobby he had picked up in retirement and prepared some old people chit chat about gas prices and Dancing with the Stars. When I got there he was young (and straight) so there went the jokes. It didn't matter, I was wowed by his flowers. Just stunning. He offered to give me some tubers come spring, because that's when you plant them to bloom in the fall. I knew nothing about growing flowers other than I wanted the blooms for myself. I went home with a milk jug full of his flowers and the promise of tubers in the spring.

Here are the remaining results:

Just kidding, those are from another dahlia farm, more on that later. Feast your eyes on these babies:





Now about that other dahlia farm. I was told about them last fall, a little late in the season. Located off Scholls road just south of Groner Elementary, this place is a flower pickers paradise. You pick all you want and then put money in the drop box, on the honor system. (And no, I didn't steal flowers from Debbie. I told you I don't steal from cultivated gardens.) I was like a kid in a candy store, clipping flowers left and right. It's what I always want to do when I see a gorgeous garden but can't. Debbie has a large variety of dahlias to choose from. I go there several times during the season and look forward to it all summer.

One thing I will say, Debbie's flowers don't last very long once cut. I saw one of the owners once, an older man like you'd expect, and he said they used a 16-16-16 fertilizer. I am guessing it's the higher fertilizer that results in great blooms but they rot faster. Take that "Debbie", if there even is a Debbie.


I can't think of a question to go with this post.
Wait! An offer! The first person who loves dahlias enough to drive to my house to pick up a bouquet wins, well, a bouquet of flowers.
6 comments:
Lovely flowers. Now I see why you were so angry that Whitman kept ruining them in your yard. Will you have some tubers for me this spring?
Here's your poem:
Dahlia in the Window
Pale and translucent as pink lemonade,
the morning sun filtered its petals
to pure lightness;
a saffron haze
near the stem, pallid fuchsia at its tips,
it yawns, unfurling its petals into
the summer air laden with mist
and amber seed.
The leaves cluster around its stem,
as though protecting its emerald heart
from the gardener’s shears;
every day an excruciating uncertainty;
the bees burrow deep
into its fuzzy heart
the way the pestle enters
the mortar; their famished
mouths can decimate
the life from this fragile bloom.
Every day the gardener
parks his rusty wheelbarrow
by the garden gate,
green with leaves and ivy,
and considers
plucking the precious blossom
from the sill;
an executioner of the garden,
the dahlia’s life dependant
upon his will.
Caroline Misner
Well, Alisha...you can't ask for anything more eloquent than that poem! But what gorgeous flowers...oh, Arizona, these are the days that make me long to be someplace else!!
Neighbor guy says that you have to put the dahlia's hot water when you pick them. That is suppose to make them last longer. I just do what he says and don't ask questions.
These are gorgeous, gorgeous! I wanted so badly to drive over as soon as I read this post, but darn it, I simply couldn't! I was thinking about them all day, though, and looked up the address right away. I can't wait to see the rows and rows of beautiful color & take some home with me! (I'm glad to know about the hot water tip, I need anything I can get!) Again, gorgeous, Alisha!
When I first saw those "tubers", I thought they were crippled and disformed rats. Oh, how I was wrong!
~Talia
Post a Comment