Good Life Dahlias

11/02/2026

And just like that, it's all over! We dropped below 30 last night, and for the first time in a couple of years, we have frosty dahlias! The last two years we didn't freeze until after Thanksgiving, so we had everything dug already. This was a solid freeze. Plants are crunchy, leaves are coated in solid ice. I would expect to have black plants out there tomorrow. Funny how the start is so slow, a few shoots here and there, the first blooms, but the end comes all at once! We've been cutting down plants and dividing for the last two weeks, but the end hits a little different when mother nature has a say :)
Anyone else have their first solid frost last night?

11/01/2026

I love it when a variety produces nice solid tubers and plenty of them! Lee's Ember for the win this morning! Many of our clumps tend to be rather small, and tubers a bit more slender than I would like, which is something we are working on, but when making an adjustment, it takes an entire season to see the results of that change. Then when it hasn't had the effect you were hoping for, it's another year before you can see if something else will bring improvement. You can do all the reading, ask all the experienced growers, but every garden is different, so taking it season by season, trial and error, is really all you can do. In the mean time, the life we're growing is pretty phenomenal, so I'll take it!

11/01/2026

Didn't quite get all the clumps divided today before it was time to head out trick or treating, and we've had some extra chilly nights, so I tucked these babies in the unheated greenhouse, with the heating mats behind them. I tossed a plastic sheet, and whatever else I had laying around over top and called it a day! It's not pretty, but it should do the job. I've used them before under greenhouse plastic to keep early seedlings warm during cold nights, and it usually buys me a few degrees. I tucked the thermometer in one of the trays, so I can watch it overnight, which also means I can compare the temp under the plastic, to the ambient temp on the other greenhouse thermometer. If all else fails, Tyler will be making a middle of the night run out to the greenhouse with the heater 😂

10/31/2026

Probably the prettiest clump I dug today with solid tubers, and plenty of them, of course it happens to be a mislabel that also had a blown center, so it's headed for the compost. Why do the best blooms always give me just a handful of stringy tubers, but the truly awful blooms have the most beautiful tubers!? Ugh!
For the record this was 'not Strawberry Cream" but rather some orange monstrosity that bloomed with an open center all season. But because we like pretty things, here's a few of the real deal from the tubers I had from a different source :)

10/30/2026

Today I was dividing the row of poms, and for the most part, found tiny tubers to go with those tiny blooms. Contrast that with the grenade-sized tubers from AC Loomis that I also happened to be dividing. Personally, I'd prefer something in the middle :)

10/29/2026

And just like that, this garden has been put to bed for the winter. Buuuut you might notice another smaller garden there that is still full of color. And what you can't see is the 250 waterlilies along the driveway, or the biggest garden out back, tucked into the trees with another ~1,300 plants. We call it "The Big Dig," and my friends, it is no joke! It is a monumental task, but we are making progress!

10/28/2026

10/28/2026

Several weeks ago I stopped deadheading the waterlilies in hopes that I could collect some seed from them this year. They are planted in our front yard, a couple hundred feet from anything else, so I'm hoping the bees did a good job buzzing around the patch to create some beautiful things for next season. I know some people wait for pods to turn brown and dry on the plant, but in our wet climate, they usually just turn to mush, or start to mold, so picking green seed pods seems to work a bit better this late in the season. How do you know when they're ripe? Give those little guys a nice squeeze and find out! Pods with ripe seeds inside feel firm to the touch. I bring them inside to dry until I'm feeling bored in the winter and need a little project to keep me busy.
I find it interesting that some of the most floriferous plants had zero seed pods. Why? Well, instead of dropping all their petals, they hung onto them which just caused a rotten mess instead of a nice seed pod. Some varieties were clearly better seed pod producers, but could you remove all the petals from the spent blooms to aid in seed pod development and prevent rot from the petals? Most likely, but it might just have to be an experiment for next year!
Some of my favorite varieties had no seed pods to collect, but hopefully they lent their pollen to the plants around them that produced! What were some of your favorite waterlilies this season?

10/27/2026

A little late night shopping when you realize you are just about out of Ziplocs for storing tubers, but you are only 20% through dividing.... We store tubers individually in sealed bags, which also means that as soon as they are tucked away for winter, they are already prepped for shipping!

10/25/2026

We have a rule in our house- do not buy me flowers unless I can plant them in the ground. This arrangement works well for us. I HAVE told him that I would LOVE if he cut me a vase full of dahlias and brought them inside. Several years in, and he finally brought this bunch inside for me. Apparently he just never knew which ones he was "allowed" to cut. (Fair point. Sometimes I'm waiting for something to open all the way to get photos and document, and being the attentive husband, he knows this.) Well, when you're cutting down plants, getting ready to dig, every one of them is fair game! Keeping fresh flowers on the counter as long as we can!