Dahlia fireworks

To me, the dahlia petals look like they are exploding from the center of each flower.

How many licks does it take to get the center of... a dahlia???

These deep purple dahlias almost look good enough to eat... almost.

Scatter the smiles and sunshine all along your way

When strolling through Golden Gate Park with Hubby, we came upon a seasonal planting area that is tended by volunteers from the community. It was in full bloom with dahlias. With camera in hand, I leaned over the iron fence protecting the gardens and drooled over the amazingly gorgeous dark-brown (and weedless) soil. I almost wanted the soil more than the flowers! I guess that's a sign of a gardener.

Anyway...

As I slowly walked the perimeter looking at the array of dahlias (and the soil at their feet), I came upon this bunch of dahlia petals that had fallen from an overly-heavy mop-head of a blossom. The petals were still so fresh and vibrant, as if they had just fallen minutes before when a volunteer brushed by to tend a neighboring plant.

I only took one photo.

I've looked at this photo several times since taking it.

When I look at the image, the words of a hymn come into my mind...

In a world where sorrow ever will be known,
Where are found the needy and the sad and lone,
How much joy and comfort you can all bestow,
If you scatter sunshine everywhere you go.

Chorus (for the altos):
Scatter the smiles and sunshine all along over your way.
Cheer and bless and brighten every passing... passing day
Scatter the smiles and sunshine all along over your way.
Cheer and bless and brighten every passing day

I've always thought it was interesting that the cheerful chorus is repeated twice after every verse. It makes me think that's probably the part that deserves most of my attention.

One dahlia blossom is so small in comparison to the rest of the world. So am I. Yet this dahlia scattered its petals on the ground which caught my eye (and my camera lens) and then made me think of something so sweet as this hymn... makes me wonder what I can learn from that dahlia.

"Scatter Sunshine" (click here to listen)
Text: Lanta Wilson Smith
Music: Edwin O. Excell, 1851-1921
Scripture references: Psalm 100:2 and James 1:27

My Dahlias Never Stand Up Straight

I have a friend (who I consider my gardening mentor) that is a professional gardener and highly-respected horticulturalist. The other day, she called to tell me that she had some sunflowers and annual climbers she was giving away that she had originally grown for a nursery that now no longer wanted them.

I was thrilled! All but one of the sunflower seeds I'd planted this spring, the birds had dug up and eaten. Yes, I would take them!

So I drove over to her place to pick them up and bring them to their new home. She had told me to just walk around to the garden because she'd be out there working when I came by. So I did.

I love walking through her gardens. They are full of serendipity and surprise; the kind that causes a beauty-induced ache in my chest that only nature can inspire. I found her digging about her lamb's ear bed. I took a quick look around at the amazing menagerie of flora that surrounded me. And I immediately began the rapid-fire brain process of plant identification making note of where she had each one planted in relation to the sun and its neighbors--gardener-type stuff.

Then I noted that she had a variety of dahlias peeking up in random places throughout the other plants. And I also noted that her dahlias were standing up straight. A wave of "gardener envy" washed over me. It always happens. I think every gardener experiences it. I always find the one thing I don't have in my own garden when looking at someone else's garden and then mentally flog myself about it. So silly.

Since that day I've been finding my mind wandering back to the fact that my dahlias never stand up straight. Every time I pass by them in the front garden, I think about it. I look at them. Why are their green necks curved and serpentine instead of regally straight? It is a dahlia conundrum that I am too embarrassed to ask my friend about for fear that she will judge me as inept when it comes to raising dahlias properly.

For the next couple of days I would avoid looking at them when I was sitting on the front porch or when I was digging about them to plant the 3 foot high sunflower seedlings my friend gave me. I just couldn't bear thinking about it one more time.

Finally, today I couldn't stand it anymore. I went and got one of my metal plant stakes out of the garden bin on the porch, stuck it in the ground at the base of the offending dahlia under the Blue Ribbon rosebush and wired the bending stems to the rigid green pole. There! At least it looks like it's standing up straight now.

And the other offender that is in the brick flower bed under the front window that has already bloomed? I cut it off.