Gardening in the Valley of Heart's Delight

Dahlias


	I bought some dahlia tubers at Costco, and despite letting them sitting around for another two months before planting them, they've done just fine. Dahlia flowers are often so perfectly formed, I can hardly believe they're real. The leaves you see in this picture, by the way, are from those morning glories which are happily using the dahlias as trellises.
In catalogs you occasionally see ads for "dinner plate dahlias," ones that are supposedly as big as dinner plates. Now I think of dinner plates as being twelve inches across, so this one doesn't qualify by that measure. But it's over seven inches across, which is still quite impressive.
	I'm hoping that all of these dahlias will be perennials. According to the books, you're supposed to dig them up every fall and store them over the winter, a must in areas where the ground freezes. I suspect that rotting due to excess moisture is more the problem here.
But I have some, like the rust-colored one to the right, that have been coming back for three years now. So my plan is to plant dahlias, enjoy them for the season, and if they come back the next year, I'll rejoice at having found another easy-care winner. If they don't come back, I'll have an opportunity to plant something else. It's a win-win situation.