AS WE PREPARE for the arrival of autumn (Sunday, Sept. 22, at 5:43 a.m.), many of our garden plants and flowers are beginning to do poorly. But not my favorite flower, the dahlia, and why?
They dominate!
Color, size and more
Here are reasons why dahlias are the greatest:
• They are easy to grow anywhere on the North Olympic Peninsula. Yes, in your house at 10 Black-thumb Lane!
• They will give you more eye-catching over their entire growing season than any other plant — while providing unsurpassed cut flowers.
• The cut flowers last a week or two and come in all sizes and colors.
• Dahlias range in height from as short as 6 inches to as tall as 9 feet.
• Their flower size varies from 1-inch bloom to flowers more than 13 inches in diameter (This is phenomenal when floated in a crystal bowl).
• Their flowers come in 16 different styles ranging from cactus to ball, orchid, pompom, even formal and informal decorative. Fireworks are named after dahlias because both receive inherent “ooohs and ahhhs.”
• Attractive and distinctive, dahlia foliage ranges in all hues of green, reddish, bronze and even bluish tones.
• Dahlias are from tubers, which means they keep producing more of themselves for free, or to give away and trade. And if you don’t want to store or tend them, growers are pleased to sell you new ones next year.
• The range of color is unsurpassed in any genus. Dahlias come in solid, tricolor, bicolor, dark, light, fringed, spooned, cupped, edged, bright, soft, deep rich flamed, red, orange, pink, purple, lavender, yellow, gold, bronze, white, burgundy, mauve, fuchsia — and all sorts of hues.
• Dahlias bloom better each day they are alive. They don’t go downhill until 30-degree frost knocks them out. That means they bloom until the very end of October or November — when the rest of the flowers are looking pretty shabby or are mixing in the compost.
• Dahlias bloom for a full five months — from July into November. That means they are here for the tourist season!
• They are cost-effective with tubers starting around $5 to $10 a piece. They’ll cover your ground sensationally — and do so at a very reasonable cost.
• Dahlias just adore warm (not hot) days and grow lush and thick when they experience cool evenings (50 to 60 degrees).
Now that you know just why dahlias are oh so cool, I have a fun-filled, enjoyable task for you.
Get out your new digital camera (or buy several rolls of film, if you haven’t gone electronic), gather up your friends, loved ones or neighbors — and, within the next two weeks, make it a day to see dahlias.
Walk in the fields with tens of thousands of blooms — some of them are as large as your head — at our local flower farms and cutting gardens (also check the Jefferson County Master Gardeners Dahlia demonstration garden in the triangle mini-park on the Sims Way entry into Port Townsend).
Take lots of pictures amid flowery seas of color. Buy some blooms or a bouquet.
Order some tubers from the plants that moved your soul.
Download (or develop) those photos of you buried in blooms — and send them to your out-of-town friends. Those photos will prove that a “Fall Dahlia Days” festival in Port Townsend or Port Angeles would be a great idea.
It could equal the summer Sequim Lavender Festival and hanging baskets (downtown and at your homes) as a centerpiece for Flower Peninsula USA.
And don’t forget Christmas lights for winter and spring bulbs for spring as well.
Think about getting dahlias for next year. And do … stay well all!
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Andrew May is a freelance writer and ornamental horticulturist who dreams of having Clallam and Jefferson counties nationally recognized as “Flower Peninsula USA.” Send him questions c/o Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362, or email news@peninsuladailynews.com (subject line: Andrew May).
