'DAHLIAS!' .. I said (in internal horror) rather too loudly upon opening the large hessian bags my g'friend had just given me, while trying desperately trying to look pleased, chuffed & heart-warmingly happy!
You know those times when you have 'moments flash before your eyes'? Well, I'd just had one .. of every yard & garden or park etc that I had seen in my (then) 50 odd yrs of life, with staked dahlias & images of all the work that went into them JUST to have them. They were the LAST plant I ever wanted to grow ..
But a compulsive gardener (that I am) can't say 'no' to a mystery 2 bags of mixed plants when a g'friend turns up with them, can they? She never said a word of what was in the bags & I didn't ask when she asked if I wanted them. I just ASSUMED they'd be cannas, as we both had become addicted to them.
Well, my hubby & I have 1/2 an acre here & we had just started planting out & tidying 'the paddock', where 3 horses had been kept previously, with all manner of eucalypts & under storey plants. It seemed a good idea to stick the dahlia tubers along the 2 sides of the fenceline, with the thought that the fence would hold them up .. I was NOT going to stick sticks everywhere & do all that work!
Now, some 5 plus yrs later, they are STILL planted where I first put them .. never raised for Winter (we get temps. as low as -10'c with frosts that get your fingers stuck to metal if you don't wear gloves) & all I do is mulch over them with their own 'spent' growth & some extra home-made compost & the leaves etc that fall from the eucalypts & wattles.
The only thing I did for them, when first planted, was to plant them in slightly raised areas of soil so any excess rainwater ran off easily & plant them not too far off the wire fencing so they could stick their own arms out & hang on.
The only thing I do for them while they are growing is to look at them, take photos of them, pick a few for vases & give some away, kick a bit of garden stuff over them when I notice the tubers getting too big for their boots & escaping from under the soil or remove some tubers that are sticking out & share them.
The only thing I do for them after they've finished is to cover them with their own dead bodies & tidy up their little graves (that's what my hubby says they look like!) with a little more humus from the surrounding garden areas .. and wait for the next Summer to start all this work again!
Footnote: Ok, I'll confess
.. I have come to enjoy & appreciate them! I have found that they will easily grow from seeds (if the conditions here being optimal for rain, as I don't water 'the paddock') & I have transplanted some tubers to another garden closer to the house.
There are 'new' varieties popping up in 'the paddock' this year I see .. and some from last year in the closer gardens (they get watered) have this year produced their own 'new' flowers! Enjoy the pics! #3 is an arrangement of my donated flowers to a local Church for Easter this year.
Well, there's a few .. who wants to see more?
