Worth Waiting For…
I have fallen in love with Dahlia’s lately. In a mad state of “must have” I bought a bunch of Dahlia corms and planted them around the perimeter of my Squash garden. Not my best plan. I didn’t really listen to the needs of the corms as well as I thought I had and I didn’t really recognize how that space might not be what was best for the dahlias to grow, I just had a vision; a squash garden with a perimeter of tall flowers that you could see from the road.
The first to go were the Bidens. Overwhelmed with the June rains and winds and unhappy with the clay soil…they fought hard and they lost. Next were the dahlias, all except this one plant that soldiered on despite being smothered by weeds, beaten by rains and winds, and crowded by honey nut squash plants, this plant endured. The gladiolas came and went…begrudgingly. The lavender succumbed to the poor conditions. And the cosmos stayed bushing thin and green until one day at the end of September. I had some zinnias and some marigolds…but I wanted my dahlias.
So I worked to rescue this plant while the cosmos stole the show. This little plant, attacked by pests, now trying to figure out which season we were in anyway, kept pushing through, not giving up. Then one day as I was about the give up on it, I noticed a bud. I nice thick bud that looked healthy and almost ready to bloom. Then I got busy and didn’t make it out to the back garden for a week when one day I caught something in my line of vision as I was washing dishes that threw me off. I was trying to guess what it was…as I accounted for all of the other things I planted, when it dawned on me…did my dahlia bloom? I quickly dried my hands and went to the back garden, now emptied almost entirely of it’s fruits and there, with such pride and dignity, there in all of it’s stateliness was this gorgeous…exquisitely colored Dahlia. I just said, “Look at YOU! It’s going to frost tonight so lets take you in.” I pulled the stalk and brought her inside, praising her for her determination and beauty, her resilience and strength. So beautiful, so tender, so interesting in all of her layers, she was definitely worth waiting for.
