I plucked the few remaining wilting flowers from the dahlia plants, making simple drawings and writing descriptions of them on paper bags. Then I dug the dahlia plants, cut the stems off and put the bulbs in the properly marked bag.
I’ve never been this purposeful before when digging and storing my dahlia’s. (it gets too cold in Upstate NY to leave the bulbs in the ground for the winter) Last year, by mistake, I gave away all my yellow plants except one.
I want to make sure I don’t give away all of one variety next year.
On Friday night I covered most of the plants with sheets because there was a warning of a hard frost. But even with the cover, only one dahlia plant, by the back porch, survived.
Since the frost, there have been two bees frozen on two of the flowers. Although I clipped the flowers and moved them to the rocks wall, the bees are still too cold to move. I don’t know what kind of bees they are or where they would be if not on the flowers.
Maybe the sun will come out tomorrow and warm them up so they can leave if they want to.
I just love your dahlias. I didn’t get a chance to dig mine up before we moved and I will miss them. One in particular was from my son-in-laws grandmother, Bill and my daughter also moved two weeks before we did. It is always nice to remember our relatives and friends wo gave us these plants.
I love plants and flowers that have that kind of memory Uta. I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to dig your dahlia’s up. I’d love to send you some bulbs if you’d like. I’ll email you about it. Won’t have the same memories, but you know Bedlam Farm well enough so it would be a different kind of memory.