When I looked over my garden on Sunday to select material for In a Vase on Monday, the delightful meme hosted by Cathy of Rambling in the Garden, one choice was obvious. By the start of November, I'd pulled out all but one dahlia, the only one I purchased as a full-grown plant. I'd brought it home in early July when I was afraid that all the dahlia tubers I'd planted might be duds. It was already blooming when I bought it but, as it was apparent it'd never been pinched to promote side shoots, I cut all those blooming stems back hard. Its first blooms appeared on IAVOM August 1st. I subsequently got blooms from a tuber of the same variety I'd planted but it never produced the volume of flowers I got from the plant picked up at the garden center and I dug that tuber up in late October. Meanwhile the store-bought plant just continues to flower as if it was mid-summer.
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This week's blooms of Dahlia 'Lavender Ruffles' are a full 8 inches in diameter
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Back view: Much as I love the dahlia's pinkish-lavender color, finding suitable companions to complement it has been surprisingly difficult. This week I used foliage of my burgundy coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides 'Vino') and the multi-colored foliage of Hebe 'Purple Shamrock'.
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Top view
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Clockwise from the upper left: Dahlia 'Lavender Ruffles', Hebe 'Purple Shamrock', Persicaria capitata, and Plectranthus scutellarioides 'Vino'
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Meanwhile, the noID Camellia sasanqua shrubs I inherited with the garden have been blooming for weeks. With rain in the forecast for later this week, I decided it might be best to cut a few stems on Sunday as the delicate Camellia flowers don't always respond well to rain.
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The garden came with 2 Camellia sasanqua, neither of which I can identify. They're similar but not identical in color but the form of their flowers are different, as are their growth habits.
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As is often the case with my arrangements, the back view looks less symmetrical than the front view but I couldn't bring myself to cut a 5th Camellia stem to balance things out
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Top view
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Clockwise from the upper left: Specimens of both Camellia sasanqua, Achillea ptarmica, Argyranthemum frutescens 'Aramis Bi-color Rose', and Coprosma repens 'Fireburst'
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I'm trying not to get overly invested in the prospect of rain as an earlier forecast suggesting rain on Monday (today) failed to materialize but every local weather forecaster has mentioned the prospect of rain starting Thursday night so it's impossible to ignore. Our rain total for the "water year" that started on October 1st stands at 1.21 inches (30.7mm) but we're on the precipice of our peak rainy season, December-March, and it'd be nice to see a break from the La Niña standard that kept us dry two years in a row. I've also been making heavy use of the rainwater collected during the two light storms we had earlier and it'd be great to top off my collection tanks.
For more IAVOM creations, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.
All material © 2012-2022by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
