Dahlias

Dahlias, Dahlias, Dahlias!! What a wild ride of emotions with this flower. I will tell you that I admittedly said I didn't really care for them early in the season......

Late winter I went down the rabbit hole looking for tubers. Side note: Tubers are the "seed" /root to grow dahlias.

I bought tubers from multiple reputable flower farms, and even found some in a clearance bin at our local garden shop. I bought SOOOOOOO many, I couldn't help myself. They are so beautiful. I started them early indoors, spritzed them with water and let them sit on their warming mats. After a few weeks not a lot was happening, but I kept reading "trust the process". So, after the danger of frost had passed we dug our holes, put the bone meal in the hole and placed our started tubers eye side up, covered them with soil and then placed a little white marker next to them. We didn't water them this time, as directed to wait until we could see them coming up from the soil. We waited. and waited. and waited. Weeks had went on and FINALLY we started seeing green life pushing through to the sunlight. How exciting!

After a few weeks of waiting for them to start growing a few sets of leaves, we were almost ready for the next scary part. Now when I tell you scary, I mean it. This was one of the most nerve wracking things I did my first year as a flower farmer. It was time to pinch them back. All that time spent waiting for them to grow, and now I'm just going to cut them off! YIKES!! Again, I heard, "trust the process", ugh. We did it, we cut all of them down to one or two sets of leaves.

I just knew that I had ruined them.

THEY GREW!! and not only did they grow, the were now producing two branches from a single plant! How neat. And we wait. (I think this is the part that I may have slipped out that I didn't care for them, in my defense my snaps were killer and so amazing so I thought my dahlias were a bust so far and they take FOREVER). They grew, and they started having little tiny buds!

Waiting was hard. The reward though....

YOU GUYS!!!! They are so Incredible! We spent countless hours in the dahlia patch looking at their beauty and differences. When you cut them, they branch out and grow more! There are so many different colors and varieties. You can breed them by cross pollinating different variations to create new breeds and colors. HOW FREAKING COOL!!! Plus when you dig them up to winter them they producer multiple tubers in one cluster so you can divide and replant multiple ones of the same plant! wow! Our customers enjoyed them in bouquets and we genuinely LOVED them. I can not wait until next year to have them again.

Definitely my FAVORITE flower.