All of the sudden, October just flew by! This year has been a blast with growing flowers! The season started with germinating sweet pea seeds in January and it is ending with digging up the dahlia tubers.
I just wanted to share a few flower highlights from October . I hope to keep up with this blog with monthly photos. I have been trying to make it a monthly habit to back up all the photos from my phone to the computer, and so then my goal is to take those photos and share them with you.
I do get photos posted into Instagram stories- as this is easy to do from my phone.
This month of October the dahlias were shining, as well as the strawflowers, zinnias and sedum. I will label these pictures as you browse through them. At the end, I will write about the next step to the dahlias.
Zinnias, statice, dusty miller, sedum, celosia, strawflowers, daucus dara, and gomphrena.
Daucus Dara is in the queen annes lace family.
Polka dahlia, goldenrod, sedum, celosia, tansy and a tiny pink weed
sunflower, chrysanthemum, snapdragon, celosia, gomphrena, dill, sweet pea and sedum
polka dahlia, cosmos, pink weed, tansy, celosia and grass head
orange and white dahlias
orange and white dahlias with statice, scabiosa, sweet pea vine and forsythia
Cafe au lait dahlias, ageratum, gomphrena, zinnia, celosia, strawflower and zinnias
Cafe Au Lait dahlias
zinnias, ageratum, sedum, strawflowers, celosia, scabiosa, dahlia
yellow strawflowers, marigold, bells of Ireland, statice and forsythia
Polka Dahlia, dusty miller, lisianthus, gomphrena, stock, and ageratum greens
Zinnias, grass heads, celosia, gomphocarpus balls, scabiosa
zinnias, sedum, forysthia and goldenrod
We have just had our first hard frost where the dahlias will now need to be cut off. I will allow the tubers (they resemble sweet potatoes) to rest in the ground for the week. I will carefully watch the weather, as too much rain can rot the tubers.
Each plant has a label to identify the name and color of each plant. Each plant will be carefully lifted out of the ground, trying not to break any tubers. I will gently wash them off and allow them to dry out on a sunny day.
When I started the dahlias in the spring, they were just one tuber. Over the summer, they made babies, and each plant now has 3-5 new tubers.
Then I will package them carefully in some wood shavings into a box and they will get stored in my basement. Every so often this winter, I will check on them. This is to make sure that they are not rotting, or that they are not too dry. They are quite picky- which is part of the dahlia game!
Next spring, I will bring them up from the basement and then carefully divide the dahlias into individual tubers. So I will be turning one Polka Dahlia into potentially 3-5 Polka dahlia plants for next summer.
You can see my problem is that I will need a bigger garden! I am also toying with the idea of offering dahlia tubers next summer. Would I have any interest?
The leaves were beautiful this year in Perry County. Now as they are on the ground, I am using the leaves as mulch in my garden beds. As the leaves decompose, they create a beautiful soil for next season. This is called regenerative gardening and helps me grow in an organic and sustainable way.
November is full of preparing for the spring. Planning is key when it comes to making sure that flowers will be ready to cut every week starting in April and ending in October.
For the month of November, you will find me gathering my neighbor's maple tree leaves and cleaning up all the old summer cut flower plants. I will be putting the leaves on the garden rows. I will be planting tulip bulbs with the help of my family. I also will be planting ranunculus corms and anemone bulbs to have for spring blooms. I also have some stock and sweet pea seedlings that will go in the ground to overwinter just in time when we are all craving color!
Thanks for following along!
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