Some new blooms from last week

HH6in1


Cafe Au Lait


Karma Chocolate


Karma Maarten Swan


Candlelight


NIOD, maybe Duet

So pretty, Karen. It's so nice to have beautiful blooms in October when the rest of the garden is winding down - always something pretty to see.

Love the colors in Candlelight and the shape and perfect form of Café Au Lait and Karma Maarten Swan! Beautiful pics, the only thing still blooming in my garden are a few glads that the deer missed and agastache.....

I absolutely love the colors in Candlelight too. But I found the stems to be skinny and weak so the smallest breeze would break them off Perhaps next year if I pinch it in the beginning it will get bushier and more stout.

Genetics probably play a big role in how strong the stems are. I have two Penhill Yellow Queen dahlias and both have exceptionally thick stems as does Bristol Stripe.


The one PYQ has grown over the stake and is 6' tall with loads of buds.



Vancouver is always beautiful:

Some of my dahlias, such Rebecca's World, starts out strong enough but produces so many blooms that they get weaker and spindlier. I pinch many of the side buds and still it super produces blooms. Blue Belle is the same way. BB is an attractive color, short, and prolific but nothing special except perhaps volume. Kelvin Floodlight's blooms are huge but I can't keep them facing up even if the stems hold out. I tied each bloom up and tightly as I could right beneath the bloom but it was still rather tilted down.

I dried and bagged 39 dahlias that went into the crawl space. I have about 40 more in the garage still drying. They are the larger clumps from the front beds. Don't know if this will work but I know I don't have time or energy to divide and wrap them this year. I still have to finish cleaning up the yards after the grandsons went nutso cutting down dead plants (and digging up a few in their enthusiasm). Have a bag of salmon bones and flesh growing smellier in the raised beds that needs burying, garlic to plant along with some lilies I am rearranging. Still no peonies from Bannisters or lilies from TLG. Hope they arrive soon.

Dahlias season is definitely ending for me tomorrow morning when temps will drop down to 32 and then 28 the next morning. I picked buckets of flowers and buds just now hoping to extend the season a bit longer. So sad to see this is ending. It went by so quickly this year.

By Monday the dahlias will most likely be gone here as well, Karen. If we do get frost tomorrow night it will be 28 days earlier than in 2014.

Some times I throw plastic or sheets over mine, if frost is going to be a one night thing (and only 31-32)., I have extended my season that way. We had 27 on Friday night so I didn't bother.

We also cut pretty much every flower on Thursday afternoon. I took 5 vases of flowers into work for a big shindig they were throwing this weekend, and have that many around the house right now.

The last hurrah

I am considering covering many dahlias. Good thing I didn't know it was 39 when I went out at 8:30 to give the birds fresh water (wearing lightweight pajamas).

That is terrible, Arlene! No wonder I feel this fall season is so short. I remember having daylilies reblooming into October last year. I must admit that you have a great memory. I have totally forgotten last year's frost date.

It's only that I mark (and save) my little calendars from year to year that I know the frost date. Every day I write in the hours worked and the gardens where I worked. I'm up to 628 hours this year. Last year I finished at the end of December with 765 hours and it was 813 the year before.

Holy cow Arlene. You have me beat hands down. I hardy put in any time at all on my own garden. Boy did it show.

If I don't do it I'd pay the price of seeing every garden a mess all winter long. That's not good for the soul or the spirit.

I'd probably never have counted the hours but I had an argument with the doctor...the obese doctor, who said I should be exercising January through March. I told him I garden all year and he dismissed it so the following year I went back, calendar in hand to show him. He still wasn't phased.

That's funny. What an idiot. Obese. Do they never look in the mirror?

I'm sure there's a country wide mirror shortage. I can't imagine people willingly allowing themselves to grow so huge.

Well, I allowed myself to get to 152 while working for my two most stressful employers. Since retirement I have gradually shrunk down to 121. Not a bad weight for me at my age and height. What other's excuse (and it was an excuse) is to allow such self indulgence I don't know. I guess they simply don't care enough. I do believe that some people have a tougher time of maintaining a healthy weight due to genetics and perhaps economic problems, but I have a hard time believing that with sufficient psychological, emotional, and educational help they couldn't improve greatly. Course, some people don't have access to that. Oh well. Far more erudite people than I have written on this topic.

Losing 20, 30, even 50 pounds is one challenge but facing the loss of 100 pounds (or much more) must seem impossible. It's easier not to get to that weight than face having to lose it.

I checked on my bags in the basement and there is define sing of mold. Maybe I should just go ahead and cut them up and shake and bake them in a fungicide now.