Our dahlias had a kind of Halloween party this weekend.
Till Thursday, all our dahlias were bursting with good health and blooms of every color. This is how a few of them looked on Thursday afternoon. Susy was still bringing in armfuls of their blossoms every day.
On the evening news, we heard that we’d be having our first frost that night. Daughter Susy piped up, “Hmm! Guess we better start planning when we’ll dig up the dahlia tubers for winter.”
“Naw!”, I said. “Plenty of time. They can tolerate a quick frost or two. In Seattle, I usually left ‘em in the ground all winter unless their baby tubers were starting to bulge out of the ground and needed more room.”
“Well, okay, I guess”, said Susy, who still seems to be operating on the unfortunate and misguided theory that her mother knows something about the care and feeding of dahlias.
That night, I noticed the furnace awoke from its long and lazy summer hibernation and started spitting out some warmth two or three times.
Early the next morning, Susy headed out to do the farm chores. And couldn’t believe her eyes. All three of the dahlia gardens had turned into an ugly, ghoulish scene of tall, grotesque stalks with drab, withering objects that had once been blossoms hanging adrift on their sides.
It got worse during the day. By nightfall, the stalks and the former flowers seemed to be turning black.The Adams’s family would have loved it, and you would too, if you enjoy viewing death scenes, and if black is your favorite color.
Yes, the dahlias had faced death during their overnight ordeal, but like the good mothers they are, they fiercely protected themselves and their young babies from that grim fate. And they had a surprise “treat” waiting for us.
That day, Susy started the “exhumation” of the afflicted dahlias, not sure of what she’d be unearthing. Digging them up one by one, we were floored.
Apparently, every single dahlia laid low by the sudden frost, had managed to shield its own tuber – its source of life and nutrition – as well as all the unborn tubers still clinging to it.
It was a population explosion. Every dahlia we had planted, had produced at least a dozen or more fat, healthy baby tubers still hanging onto their mother for dear life!
Today, we finished making funeral arrangements for all the blackened stalks and “flowers” – Susy with spade and pitchfork, me with marking pen and bags for storing what appears to be hundreds of tubers, and granddaughter Josie collecting the dozens of seeds kindly left for us in the dahlia beds by our weed-suppressing nasturtiums.
Next Susy will roto-till the gardens to be ready for next summer’s show.
The only thing left to do is to start looking for a bigger farm where we’ll have to move to in order to have room to plant about 1,000 very healthy dahlia tubers. Maybe it’d be best if they aren’t quite as fertile as their mothers!
While I’m happy for your beautiful dahlia grandchildren, I’m afraid to tell you that Sister Mary Elizabeth would like to speak to you about your tardiness this week. May God have mercy on you. 😉