Dahlia flowers with purpose and meaning

September is the month for DAHLIAS!! I've always LOVED them since I was first introduced to them as a pre-teen by my good friend and mentor, Cora Slecther, who gave me a raised bed in which to grow my plants and she guided me through cultivating them and even exhibiting them in competitions. I have such a fondness for dahlias for their extravagant colors, forms, and their use as a garden plant as I've leaned more towards "garden worthy" varieties versus the "show" dahlias I grew up tending and being in awe of.

After a site visit to check on a client's establishing garden last week, I drove by a gas station and noticed a tent surrounded by white buckets with bundles of dazzling cut dahlias. It had been a long week, I've had a lot on my mind and on my plate and I realized that my dahlias in the garden are nowhere near this abundant. So, I decided to splurge and buy a bouquet. Knowing off hand that these were locally grown and freshly cut that morning, I felt compelled to treat myself and support a fellow grower. So, I had this sweet young lady throw me a bouquet together for $10 using orange dahlias with some fabulous delphiniums and any other filler she felt like using. I handpicked a few individual stems for $1 a piece for a second bouquet and I was on my way.

Realizing that the cemetery was on the way home, I decided to bring the flowers to pay my respects to family and to Cora's late husband, Ken, who happens to also be buried in the same cemetery as my grandparents and uncle. I divided up the flowers and split them four ways.



I then headed home to work in the garden a bit and noticed that I did have a few dahlias in bloom so towards the end of the day, I gathered a few blooms and mixed in some wonderful blue Symphyotrichum novi-belgii and a few blades of grasses and Sedums. I placed them on my bed stand that seemed to create a theme with a candle, an iPod player and a copy of Dr. John Gottman's "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work". The two dahlias I have in this vase are soft orange/yellow 'Camano Pet' and the fiery cactus 'Weston Spanish Dancer'!



Hmmmmm.....no, I'm still single. Don't ask.

Just enjoy the flowers!


R