Bloom Day - Dahlias

Okay, not a dahlia - a daylily. Canadian Mounty, a favorite of mine. Many of my daylilies are finished already. My mom has about 300 varieties of daylilies and so, of course, a dozen or so have migrated over here. But her's grow better than mine.

Last year I discovered dahlias, and, in spite of doing everything 'wrong', they are still growing and blooming. It's sale time in the stores for left over tubers and plants. Maybe I need to go shopping for more! This deep red one is about a 3 inch blossom, beautifully rich, and a great bloomer. Last year I had one pot - this year I had enough tubers for 4 pots of them.

These dahlias are in a self-watering earthbox and are doing great even though dahlias aren't supposed to like 'wet feet'. I don't know the names of most of my dahlias. Some were gifts and some were unlabeled.

This is a large dinnerplate variety and a good bloomer. It, too, is in a self-watering container. So far I haven't grown dahlias in the ground - always containers. Last year I had a lot of trouble with them drying out too much on the hot days. Very large self-watering containers seems to be solving this problem. I still have to water almost every day, but the plants aren't wilting like they did last year.

A new variety for me this year, Peaches-N-Cream. It's pretty and a very tall plant. It's supposed to be a dinnerplate, but is only about 4 inches across.

This one has done wonderfully well this year. It is a beautiful cactus variety and has been blooming nonstop. But the Japanese Beetles like the dahlias so I've had to start checking the plants daily for bugs. The beetles like wild mullien better and I have several of those plants growing in the back yard as trap crops so hopefully that will help keep them away from the dahlias and water lilies.

My absolute favorite dahlia is Akita Dahlia. I got this last year and it has just started blooming for this year. This is the flower that caused me to fall in love with dahlias.

White Coneflower. I put this in last year and this year I have just this one blossom.

Purple coneflower just starting to stretch it's petals out.

And Crocosmia Lucifer, another favorite flower. These are hardy in Zone 5. Yeah! And yesterday I found a few pots of a rich yellow variety on sale. They are now mine and waiting to be planted near the red ones.
Happy Gardener's Bloom Day!