My husband has always been much more of a gardener than I am. But lately I have been excited about growing flowers, especially dahlias! Since I grew up in tropical Hawaii, dahlias are not a flower from my childhood. But I find the colors and geometries of dahlias extraordinarily appealing.
My interest in dahlias started out with some small pink ones that my local florist sometimes sells. A friend of mine also had a few in her garden, but otherwise, dahlias are a bit difficult to find in Spain. Our local garden shop sells some dahlias, but not very exciting varieties, so I mail ordered a mixed bunch of tubers online.
The soil in our garden is rock hard and the land is steeply inclined so that most of the garden is well below the house and out of sight. So I bought a lot of pots to plant my dahlias in and also planted some down below in the garden.
Interestingly, the dahlias in the garden started off slowly, but then shot up much taller and bloomed better than the ones in pots. I think I may have been over-ambitious and crowded the tubers in the pots. So I guess I will take them out and store them over the winter and replant them in the garden next spring.
I have these three textured porcelain vases that I designed that I particularly love with one or two blooms. Bringing flowers into the home is so therapeutic, a beautiful little flower arrangement can brighten up my whole day, and having cut flowers from my garden raises the pleasure to a whole new level.
photo: Tall textured vase in matte white porcelain. Available at our online store.
The colours are so vibrant in some of these blooms. It was fun having "surprise" blooms, not really knowing what to expect, though next year I think I will choose specific varieties and create more of a color palette.
photo: New snow-woman vase. Limited series available at www.etsy.com/shop/MaiaMingDesigns
Having such pretty dahlias makes me want to design more bud vases. This picture above is a prototype for a new vase design in porcelain. More than ever, I like having a few special blooms better than a whole bouquet of flowers. I will definitely have to find more space in my garden and grow more dahlias next year!
It's the end of the season, and has been raining a lot, so I don't really want to post a picture from the garden right now, you'll have to wait until next spring for that!