Tonight we finished planting everything down in the big garden. First, the last six dahlia made it into the ground. I can now happily say all 236 dahlias are planted! Amazingly, as late as I am, I am still done planting two days earlier than I finished last year. So no matter how bad it seems, I guess it can always be worse! After the last of the dahlia were in, I planted my row of purchased "State Fair" zinnias that I bought last Saturday at Grey's Garden center. It wouldn't be summer to me without some zinnias blooming.
Here are two "Camano Cloud" dahlias. I am pretty pleased to have grown these from tubers saved from last year. "Camano Cloud" is a gorgeous peachy/orange dahlia but a notoriously poor tuber maker. I bought two cuttings from a commercial grower last year. When I dug in the fall each cutting had produced a small clump of two to three skinny tubers. I decided not to divide them. Instead, I just washed each clump and wrapped the whole clump in saran wrap and stored them away with my divided tubers. When I checked on them in April each "Camano Cloud" clump had sent up one new shoot. I trimmed the clumps up a bit and planted them each in a one gallon pot and voila - two nice healthy plants this year. I will definitely try to save them again this year using the same method.
Here's my newly planted zinnia row. They look a bit scraggly right now, but will soon settle in and start to branch out. They already have formed their first bud, so I will also have some color soon which will be nice.
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