Plant Talk

The Last of the Dahlias and Raspberries - Finally, Farewell to Summer

Isnt' it great to wear boots and scarves again, and not have to water the garden every day? There are compensations to our long, lovely summer finally ending, and we need to muster them all to say goodbye to summer's greatest pleasures....like dahlias and raspberries.

I don't grow these big, blowsy showgirls of the dahlia world, but couldn't resist buying one of the glorious  bunches my neighbor set out on a little cart along the street ($6 a bunch). The raspberries are from my garden...they've grown smaller as the nights cooled, and are unbelievably sweet...as if all the nectar of summer's late golden sunshine is concentrated in these last berries of the year.

Here's my neighbor's field of dahlias on a morning in early October...

A big bunch like this, with all the colors and textures, almost hurts my eyes...I like mixed dahlias better from a distance or up so close they almost become abstracts..

 

Bringing the Garden Indoors - The Scent and Colors of Summer

A hot orange 'Forncett Furnace' dahlia is the star of the big bouquet this week - with violet buddleia to contrast, and golden lilies to play off the dahlia's fluffy golden center.

When you pick flowers to bring indoors you look at them much more closely than when they're growing en masse out there in the garden...which is both the zen and the joy of flower arranging. With such close observation, such human/flower intimacy, sometimes one element of a single bloom can serve as inspiration for an arrangement...here it's the center of that old-fashioned, open-faced, endlessly vigorous dahlia. I could have cut an armload of 'Forncett Furnace' but a single flower is more effective played against the spikiness of budleia and the silkiness of the trumpet-shaped lilies. And there's a bit of alstroemeria, with its more petite flowers, tucked in there for a contrast in flower size.

The amber raku vase adds its subtle sheen, but with these showy flowers and intense colors, the vase definitely plays second-fiddle to the flowers.

Brand New Dramatic Dahlia 'Mystic Wonder' - Blood Red Flowers and Mahogany-Black Foliage

There's nothing subtle about the new dahlia 'Mystic Wonder' but then mid-to-late summer gardens aren't about subtlety. For bold drama, nothing beats a dark-leafed, intensely colored dahlia, growing in a pot, border, or cut for the vase.  And now the soil and air are finally warming up enough, the sun growing strong enough, that dahlias are more than a remote possibility. 

Over many garden seasons, 'Bishop of Llandaff' was the reigning dark-leafed drama queen of a dahlia, with semi-double scarlet flowers and purple-black foliage. In the last couple of years, breeders have been flooding the market with these dusky-leafed semi-hardy bulbs.

Single flowered dahlias like 'Mystic Wonder' are easier to fit into the garden than the spiky cactus-shapes or big double pom-pom showboaters. 'Mystic Wonder' has such a friendly, simple, open flower; it's claim to fame is in its velvety-textured, blood red, dark-centered flowers set against glossy, mahogany-black foliage. It grows only about 2-3 feet high and doesn't need staking, so is easy to slip into a border or use to center a pot.

Like all dahlias, 'Mystic Wonder' needs all the sun it can get, and rich, well-drained soil. Birds, bees, and butterflies love the flowers, it blooms profusely (especially if you cut off the old buds), and is a long-lasting, showy cut flower. Can you imagine a whole bouquet of these beauties? (Which aren't as pink as they appear in this photo.......)

August Update...

We have not much more than a month until the autumn equinox (Sept. 22 this year), and my garden is seriously flagging. Parts are overgrown, the broccolli and cilantro long since bolted; everything would have benefited from more trimming and editing than I've provided in this hot, dry summer.

But there are signs of hope - the raspberries are coming on deliciously, my dwarf blueberries and ever-bearing strawberries continue to produce. Apples and pumpkins are coloring up, a third sowing of lettuce is kicking in, hydrangeas are plumped up, and the agastache is luring hordes of feisty hummingbirds. Here's a selective look at what's happening out there on a mid-August afternoon:

A slug-riddled ligularia just coming into bloom next to a mop-head hydrangea- how come slugs are so huge and plentiful in such a droughty summer, anyway?

Pumpkins turning orange two months before Halloween...

Sweet peas persist alongside a mystery dahlia I found at a farmers' market here on Whidbey.

Echinacea 'Sunset' and orange hummingbird mint (Agastache aurantiaca 'Just Peachy')

I've bought artichokes to eat at farmers' markets, and left mine in the garden to develop purple fuzz. This is an Italian purple artichoke, growing here with Rudbeckia 'goldsturm'