Those of you who know me know my life tends to run in obsessions. In years past, for instance, it was gourds. As my daughter Christine says in the Father’s Day video our Summer Interns made for church (great job, guys!), “My dad really loves gourds”.
But this year, I didn’t plant a single gourd. In fact, summoning every ounce of willpower I have, I actually pulled all the gourd plants sprouting on their own. Well, most of them…
So what’s in their place? Dahlias. You guessed that already, didn’t you?
One of the things I like about dahlias is that they are so varied. They vary in size, from plants that are barely a foot tall to plants over seven feet. Flowers can be less than an inch in diameter or more than a foot wide. They vary in color, coming in almost every color imaginable. And they vary in form. The first one, for instance, is called an “urchin”. The second, a “single”. There are also orchids, anemone, collaretts, formal and informal decorative, cactus, water lily, peonies, pompons, ball dahlias, and so on.
I am by no means an expert, which is I think the fun of it all. Lots of opportunity to learn, to try new things, to create beauty as one paints a garden on their flower palette.
Comments