Delicious Dahlias

Hello everyone!

After our heatwave in June and July, the garden is finally looking a little more productive, and is rewarding me with these magnificent blooms in these final golden days of summer.  I’m absolutely in love with this colour palette too, although I might not be able to resist added a more sugar pink hued dahlia to my collection next year.  Maybe a pompom one would look lovely with these.

The varieties shown above are as follows – Labyrinth, Café au Lait, Julie One, Penhill Dark Monarch, and Sugar Diamond.  I do also have Linda’s Baby which is lovely, and Penhill Watermelon which is gorgeous, but has only just really got going.  It is still a huge learning curve for me to grow these beauties.  What I’ve learned this year, is that the size of these plants vary a lot and I didn’t really pay attention to that when I was planting them.  Poor old Julie One was planted too close to one of my Labyrinth, and therefore has sat in it’s shade all summer.  I’ll have to have a reshuffle next spring, once they start to sprout.  And yes I will leave them in the ground as I’m a tremendously lazy gardener!  A good mulch this winter should do the trick, the labyrinth came back bigger and better from last year, so fingers crossed they all survive the winter.

As always, my favourite way to display these is simply in little vintage bottles.  Though maybe this weekend I will try to do something a little more creative with them, maybe with some clematis leaves and seed heads foraged from the heath.

In case you missed my last post (you can see it here), I’m having a complete change around in the craft room.  I’m turning it into a studio, with more space, and less ‘stuff’, so I can shoot against the large wall in there.  I do love a challenge!  I’ll keep you updated as soon as it’s finished.

Tamsyn x