Fingers Crossed, the Mitcheldean Garden 2021
Dahlia Developments

This page is part of a series of garden blogs from 2021. Click here for the index.

I got a horrid surprise when I went to uncover the dahlia tubers in the garage in March. Normally just a few go rotten, this time it was far worse, I can only assume that several exceptionally cold nights had done for them. Some had survived rather better, not surprisingly this included the dark dahlias and the horrible purple and white ones. I recovered what I could, ordered a few more from our internet supplier and fortunately got a job lot of three kinds from Lidl. As such this year's displays are frankly an embarrasing shambles. There are no pictures of the bed by the road and the bed by our neighbour's greenhouse.

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The best of what was immediately available went into the middle bed. There were almost no red survivors so it was a good job that we were later able to get remaindered red begonias and salvia to balance the colours. The sweet peas did very well and lasted (just) into August. The fuchsias were very late although just about all seemed to have recovered from their exposure to the cold. There were plenty of old and new gladioli which also flowered from early August, some of which are shown in the first part.

The middle bed has been going strongly for just over a month as I write this, all the dahlias need is a little water and occasional dead heading. This year they will be treated with 'kid gloves' when it comes to storage.

Both purple and yellow pointed varieties were among the survivors, there seemed to be at least one of most of my favourites that survived the massacre.

The white pointed and large yellow varieties are new.

Both of these are new - note the bee on the left.

Our one major success was the 'new bed' on our southern boundary from which I had removed the useless blackcurrant and then had dug over and given the horse manure treatment. Necessarily they are not well positioned for photography but we currently have no neighbours in residence so I was able to hop over the low fence to record them. 

I have proved to be useless at recording and cataloguing our dahlias and for a couple of years, I have put 'lost label' examples in the vegetable patch. This year these went in next to the hawthorn hedge and some last minute additions were put next to the gladioli and dark dahlias. When they stuck their heads up it was clear that the dominant orange pompom and purple and white varieties were causing problems and they had ot be 'weeded out' and put in where the broad beans had been. A further complication was that Yuehong had been tempted into buying two marrow plants which are taking over what little space was left, you can see one in the bottom left. I am pleased to say that the weaker specimens are now starting to fill the gaps. At the back, the runner beans are now going well, especially as we had a couple of inches of rain yesterday.