Dahlia Diary: Week One

I used to have a garden… a real garden… with vegetables and flowers and even a small fish pond with a gurgling waterfall.  That was when I lived in the suburbs and had a little house with a yard.  Four years ago I moved back to the Bay Area and into a rental.  I’ve moved several times since then: I rented, I bought a house, I rented that house out, and now I’m renting again, coincidentally exactly where I started — in a small apartment in Piedmont, which does indeed have a backyard.  My landlord keeps postponing a much-needed landscaping overhaul, which has left the terraced beds pretty much barren.  So I decided this year to get back into gardening.

I called up my friends at Dan’s Dahlias in Oakville, Washington.  Dan sells the best dahlia bulbs around, in the rarest and most striking varieties.  And dahlias are such fun — the tubers show up looking like pathetic, misshapen potatoes and three months later they’re transformed into lush green shrubs covered in brightly-colored blooms.  It’s nothing short of miraculous.

Dahlias don’t need much, since most of what they need they store in the tuber itself.  I planted mine 4-6″ deep in well-drained soil, about 2 feet apart and a few weeks after the last frost.  The numbers you see in these photos, by the way, correspond to the variety.  I bought Audrey Grace, Lupine Chris, and Wildwood Marie (one of my all-time favorites), among others… nine varieties in all.

Now, I’m just waiting for new growth to break through the soil.  Stay tuned!   I’ll be keeping this Dahlia Diary all through the summer, with regular updates and photos.