It's Show Time!

There’s a difference between what you think you’ll want to do for spring planting – and the reality of the situation as it unfolds. Every year is a little different – whether it’s too dry, too wet, colder than usual, or something else entirely unexpected, you don’t really know what you’re working with until it happens.

After a dreadful season last year, I had been mentally regrouping – trying to decide how much I even wanted to invest in gardening outdoors this year. My final conclusion was yes – but I would do fewer things, and do those things well. Rather than what I often do – which is trying to do a million things – I end up overwhelmed and left with a lot of mediocrity.

Originally, I wanted to work with a lot of dahlia seeds to see if I could get some new and interesting varieties going. And I did plant some orchettes, peachy collarettes, and Junkyard Dog dahlia seeds. But I ended up deciding – at the last minute – to add dahlia tubers and work with known, producing varieties. Rather than having so many untested, unseen, possibly not great dahlias in production. In particular, I focused on big and boldly colored dinnerplate-style dahlias. I placed several orders for those types of tubers, and they’ve been arriving steadily. About 80% of the tubers have been planted – with the rest scheduled to go in next week. The ones I planted 3 – 4 weeks ago are now coming up. Well, many of them.

So far, the weather here in Missouri has been more like what you might find in northern New Mexico – much different from last year, when it rained nonstop all summer and ruined most of my tubers. This spring has been cooler than average, with very little rain – which is actually pretty good when you’re trying to get a bunch of dahlia tubers to sprout. It’s also ideal for planting dahlia cuttings, which can be sensitive at first to intense heat and sunlight.

I planted a bunch of my own special cactus zinnias that I’ve been working with for several years. I went back to seeds from a particularly good year and pulled those out for a reboot. The thing about zinnias is that they grow in almost any conditions, grow fast, and produce blooms like crazy. If there are ever weak areas in the garden, I often save the day by planting zinnias there. The only problem is – if you have a bad gardening year – you might end up with way too many zinnias. Whenever there's an empty zone in the garden, it’s a great spot to plant zinnias to fill it up quickly. While standard zinnias from a packet at the local garden center are perfectly fine, there are also some really amazing niche varieties out there. So it’s a chance to add something special to your garden – if you feel like it.

I had some unexpected gardening results this year as I adjust to a completely different climate. My “designer” potted rose bushes – well, I should have planted them in the ground instead of leaving them out in pots over the cold winter. None of them survived. However, a friend shipped me several new roses with fragrances I had grown in the past – and now they’re in the ground, starting to bloom and growing well.

A couple of the heirloom spider mums I grew last year oddly came back up. I definitely wasn't expecting those to survive the winter. I also received a new shipment from King's Mums that are doing well so far. Heirloom mums are something I don't have a lot of experience with, but we'll see how things look later in the season. They are always the last hooray of the flower growing season. The gladiolas I planted last year also came up, despite being left in the ground over winter. That was unexpected.

The second year of a new garden is always a lot easier – mainly because the back-busting hard work of getting the soil right, working the ground, and clearing out the “starter weeds” is done. So, it’s mostly focused on removing new, younger weeds and getting things organized in terms of garden placement. Hopefully, by year two, you're not converting lawn space into garden space anymore. Though I did bring in a lot of bagged soil recently as I built mini volcanoes on the ground for my dahlia tubers – just in case it decides to start raining too much again!

Once all of my dahlia tubers are in the ground, if there’s space left, I can consider growing some other plants. What I don’t want to happen is to go overboard with planting flower seeds, run out of space, and end up with overcrowded plants. One great way to ruin perfectly good flowers is by planting something too close that grows faster and bigger. They either get engulfed and overtaken, or are blocked from getting enough sunlight. But I do have a couple of plants I’m thinking about growing from seed – if there’s space left.

I also did plant some of Sunflower Steve's seeds. I may plant some other varieties of sunflowers and maybe do some crosses with those. Or let the pollinators bounce around between the different varieties and do the work for me.

Things are off to a great start so far. Hopefully, in a few weeks, I’ll have some good photos to show for it.

© Copyright Terry Aley

The Aley Acres seed shop on Etsy.

Dahlias, Notes from a Gardener book on Amazon.

Floral Art and Landscape Painting Etsy shop.

TikTok, some gardening posts.