Tis the season for buying dahlia tubers. In years past, I sadly and regrettably derided dahlias, considering them just too bold, too brash and too brassy. even downright gawdy. I know a few great gardeners who are stubbornly snobby and completely dismissive of them, well they just have to go and get themselves a fuller life. Today, I adore and love them. Maybe I have matured or most probably just grown up in life. And thankfully, it is about time.
Yep, I have become yet another one of those born-again passionate collectors of the great dahlias. I cannot get enough of them. Their flowers are pure dynamite, just don’t shut up flowering in the warmer months and are superb as cut flowers. The problem is where is the available space to grow them all. The varieties are thousands in number, it is hard to know where to begin, let alone end.
Going online you are practically assaulted by the boggling variety on offer. However, being a bit old-fashioned I prefer buying my dahlias tubers in person, in a retail nursery. Yes, the selection is more limited, though a good nursery should have over 60 varieties to choose from. Here you have the chance to physically touch and feel the individual size and firmness of each of the dormant tubers and thus their viability for future growth and future magnificence.
Mystery Day
Through experience I know full well the opportunity to buy them is limited in time, that is, the early weeks of spring. At this critical time, they are more popular and scarcer than toilet paper in the heights of a covid outbreak. Yes, time is short.
For me, when the long drought of their availability is over and they finally hit the nursery stands, a whole lot of super crazy begins. I am intoxicated with a feeling of a heightened blissful ecstasy, coupled with maddening moments of devilish desire, some may even call it insanity. There is now and then there is too late.
Mesmerised by the tantalisingly coloured glossy photos of each variety, and with both my hands in a furious and frenetic speed of motion, I attack the multiple display stands of dahlias. With my left hand I quickly grab the proffered dahlia packets and pull and yank with my right. I must have this one and I must have three at least of that one, the philosophy of mass plantings and all that. And on it goes. I will not be denied. Remember the time of their availability is short. In scant minutes my nursery basket is heavy and overflowing. A second basket is promptly needed, and my manic joyful activity continues. I must have the cacti, the pompoms, the waterlilies, the giants, and on it goes.
Bishop of Llandaff
Then there is a momentary standstill, a brief blink of reality strikes. What am I thinking? Where the bloody buggering bollocks will I plant them all? The available area free in my garden is acutely limited. Oh, what the heck, and with great glee I take them all, a good three dozen and a whole lot more. I promise myself that I will solve the silly and totally irrelevant question of where to plant them to sometime down the long track. Yep, I am still in the immediate throes of a crazy madness.
Three weeks later I regret nothing. The majority have been lovingly planted. I adore them all, every single chosen dahlia, as if they were my own little children. I am a very happy fella. I still have a half dozen left to plant, not quite sure as yet as to where exactly,, still hunting for any more 50cm of vacant spaces.
Having had so much fun, with next year’s spring, I will enthusiastically do it all over again, and I cannot wait. There will be no entries in the highly competitive dahlia contests. They are for my own secret pleasure. However, if someone kindly wants to buy some of my splendorous and majestic blooms as cut flowers, I won’t say no. It will help finance the future purchases of even more dahlias to add to my forever expanding collection.
That is, of course if I can find any more room to plant them. I am keenly eyeing of the next-door neighbour’s back garden. Well, you can only dream. But if you work hard enough, we all know dreams can indeed come true. I will keep you posted.
Happy gardening and have fun, regards Ned McDowell.