Dahlias - 2012, mostly the last few weeks

[digitS']

One of the major Dahlia breeders is in Montana. I have to find their webpage again.

I think it might be this one: Big Red Truck Gardens

I read an article a year or 2 ago about the passing of a guy in Kalispell who was responsible for the interest in dahlia growing there. When I first started growing dahlias, there were a number of people who advertized in Organic Gardening and those sorts of places from Kalispell.

Of all places! The dang things are so late in the season that the plants must just barely have time to bloom in NW Montana! I think that they must protect the plants during the 1st few weeks to give them an early start in the spring. Otherwise, I just don't know how they have any idea what the blooms look like by the time of fall frost!

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

http://dahlias.eldenworks.com/index.php?main_page=index&zenid=3457d59b5b7b0833930d2647368580ec

This is the one. Major set of varieties to choose from here!

 

[digitS']

Maybe the olde (Kalispell) guy .

. . was 15 miles away .

. . in Whitefish .

Steve

 

[digitS']

I'm sorry the audio starts like that and have no idea why it does :/. Pictures from today. Once it starts, the music is Debussy's Maid with the Flaxen Hair with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39fp7oB9uFA[/youtube]

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

I really like that music! Perfect with the photos of the splendid Dahlias!!!

You know your Dahlias!

 

[digitS']

Oh, but I don't, Marshall!

There only 3 varieties in that series of pictures that I know the name of. So what is it? 3 out of 30 in the garden!

They are flowers. It is as tho' I resist knowing their names! I should be able to drift thru them without a care . . . to where I can lie back on a checkered table cloth, open my wicker basket and pour a glass of wine. There should be no worries. Names are forgotten! I resist the words!

Now, I've gotten myself off to the FreeMusicArchive.org to try to listen to Ravel.

Steve

 

[ninnymary]

Steve, why is it that you know only 3 of your dahlias? Since you're so fond of them, I would think you would know at least a few more.

Mary

 

[897tgigvib]

That reminds me of a camper who has two daughters. One of the two daughters has had a boyfriend for three years who she always brings to the lake, and they all live together. The father does not even know his daughter's boyfriend's name! I guess it's just, Hay!

 

[digitS']

Yep! That works, Marshall

!

Mary, I am fond of them. They have such dramatically large flowers they have something of outsized individual personalities. I often feel like I'm completely surrounded by them and, of course, I am and it is a comfortable feeling. I'd love to have a pond and a little patch of bluegrass turf to stretch out right in the middle of a dahlia garden.

They are quite a responsibility. That's how I function in life, anyway. It if won't suffer from my inaction, I can ignore it. Otherwise, I'm compelled to be attentive. And, I'm terribly pragmatic - a real stick-in-the-mud. Vegetables are my thing until I'm "covered up with flowers. In the back of a black limousine." But by then, I won't care.

Steve

 

[RustyDHart]

Beautiful Dahlia photos and I love the video....great idea! Digging my tubers this week......preparing for the looooooong Winter here in the North. " Happy digging" for those of you just starting the long process. I didn't get my camera out this year....hope to get some good shots of some of the varieties next season.....planning on doing close to 2,000 plants for 2013. Had a few genectic "sports" mutations pop up this season as well....always a nice surprise. My best to all of the Dahlia fans!