—————- Da Da Dahlias ———————-

Since we have now entered the coldest part of the season, although you wouldn’t have known it a few days ago, I am starting to crave the long days of spring and getting my hands dirty with planting. There have been a few flowering surprises in the garden so far this winter, like the strange bromeliad “queen’s tears” that was a gift from my mother’s neighbor. The nasturtium seed I planted in November is starting to bloom, which is very exciting since I have always wanted to grow these. Hopefully the poppies will soon catch up. My first attempt at broccoli ended up blooming, which I now know isn’t supposed to get that far along before you harvest it. The lettuce is growing really fast now, so I hope everyone likes salad because I won’t be able to eat it all!

Even though winter has brought interesting sights to my garden, my first sign that spring is on its way arrived in the mail on Friday, the Swan Island Dahlia catalog. I am so overwhelmed by the beauty of these flowers that it took me a year to decide which few I should try my hand at first. How can there be so many varieties to choose from and they all be so unique?! This boggles my mind.

Dahlias are classified in two ways, by flower style and size. There are a total of 16 styles and 6 size categories. That means that there are almost 100 style/size combinations of dahlias. There are over 360 dahlia varieties to choose from just in the Swan Island catalog alone! Ranging from the pom pons that are only up to 2″ across (and adorably cute) to the huge dinnerplate dahlias that can have blooms up to 14″ across in every style imaginable. They all have fabulous names, too, like “Harvest Moonlight,” “Raspberry Punch,” and “Bodacious.”

Dahlias make fabulous cut flowers, lasting 5-6 days in a vase. The bushes grow very tall, some over 6′, so this makes for very long-stemmed blooms. As much as I love having fresh flowers in my home, I really hate buying them already cut. It is much more fun to wander through the yard and see what I can throw together to make a fresh arrangement. And I can’t wait to add dahlias to those arrangements!

I have selected an area of the back yard along the awful chainlink fence to plant these beauties, along with a few other plant species I have been growing in pots for the big day. Now all I have to do is patiently wait for the tubers to arrive on March 15th. Boy, that seems so far away. Guess I’ll just have to drool over the pages of the Swan Island catalog until then…