I first started working with dahlias professionally over 18 years ago in one of my first farm jobs in California. Then, I mostly spent hours sitting on an upturned bucket going down the rows disbudding to get the biggest blooms to dazzle market customers. Ah the days when we didn't have to dig tubers except to break up the giant clumps! When I started my own farm back home in Minnesota, I swore I'd never get into something so fussy as dahlias in cold climates. But here I am. It's hard to stay away from that much beauty, and that much good medicine for the soul.
When I finally gave myself over to my love of dahlias there weren't a ton of growers working with dahlias for cut-flowers, and so there was a lot of trial and error and trying to read between the lines of cryptic descriptions, or no descriptions, to see if a flower might make a good cut. So, I pass on the benefit of my experience with very detailed descriptions in the hopes that I might save some of you a little of the steepness of your learning curves. And maybe make you chuckle along the way.
As a food grower as well, it was a funny thing that happened in my mind that tried to tell me that flowers weren't a necessity the same way our vegetables and meats are. I'm not sure where that thought arose from, but I'm glad to say I've now firmly checked it. Beauty may not fill a belly the way food does, but hearts and worn down souls need tending, too. I found a refuge of solace in our dahlia field this season, these blooms have offered so much medicine for frayed nerves, deep griefs, and these times of uncertainty and precarity. The merits of tending to some little bit of beauty cannot be overstated.
Five years ago this fall I remember many days laying with my baby child, nursing her to sleep, with my laptop propped up on a pillow beyond her, with the screen dimmed down as low as it could go, hunting the internet for the next spring's new dahlia varieties. My mom had just died after I'd spent months tending to her in the hospital, and then caring for her here on hospice, and my heart was shattered and raw, and the new pieces of me hadn't yet been remade into anything truly decipherable. I'd spent that whole farm season feeling ripped in half between taking care of my new baby and my dying Mama, plus all the gardens and goats and CSA members. It was absolutely medicine to lie there, singing lullabies, snuggled up with my baby, and letting myself be immersed in beauty. To this day, I still think of that time with a ton of tenderness. It can seem silly to be so enthralled by a flower, but there is so much healing and magic in beauty. Truly, I think these blooms bring a lot of soothing respite to frayed nervous systems thrashed by the state of the world, and our own heartbreaks.
And I'll never trivialize the importance of anything that gives us modern people a reason to tend to our relationship with the Ground.
I wish you all beauty, and the deep-soothing balm of Hope as you plan your gardens for next season. It is a great act of faith in the possibility of the future to dream of flower gardens to come. And it is an even greater act of defiance against every force that would rather us worn down, running, and living in scarcity instead of planting refuges, tending to our broken hearts, and working toward a future of our mutual thriving.
Never let anyone make you believe that beauty is a frivolity.
Here's to the living wild Earth, and to the winter-dreaming of flower gardens to come.
~Liz
P.S. They're really not that fussy in northern climes, once you get the hang of it--and I'll send you a ton of care instructions, tips, and tricks to help you have best season yet!
When I finally gave myself over to my love of dahlias there weren't a ton of growers working with dahlias for cut-flowers, and so there was a lot of trial and error and trying to read between the lines of cryptic descriptions, or no descriptions, to see if a flower might make a good cut. So, I pass on the benefit of my experience with very detailed descriptions in the hopes that I might save some of you a little of the steepness of your learning curves. And maybe make you chuckle along the way.
As a food grower as well, it was a funny thing that happened in my mind that tried to tell me that flowers weren't a necessity the same way our vegetables and meats are. I'm not sure where that thought arose from, but I'm glad to say I've now firmly checked it. Beauty may not fill a belly the way food does, but hearts and worn down souls need tending, too. I found a refuge of solace in our dahlia field this season, these blooms have offered so much medicine for frayed nerves, deep griefs, and these times of uncertainty and precarity. The merits of tending to some little bit of beauty cannot be overstated.
Five years ago this fall I remember many days laying with my baby child, nursing her to sleep, with my laptop propped up on a pillow beyond her, with the screen dimmed down as low as it could go, hunting the internet for the next spring's new dahlia varieties. My mom had just died after I'd spent months tending to her in the hospital, and then caring for her here on hospice, and my heart was shattered and raw, and the new pieces of me hadn't yet been remade into anything truly decipherable. I'd spent that whole farm season feeling ripped in half between taking care of my new baby and my dying Mama, plus all the gardens and goats and CSA members. It was absolutely medicine to lie there, singing lullabies, snuggled up with my baby, and letting myself be immersed in beauty. To this day, I still think of that time with a ton of tenderness. It can seem silly to be so enthralled by a flower, but there is so much healing and magic in beauty. Truly, I think these blooms bring a lot of soothing respite to frayed nervous systems thrashed by the state of the world, and our own heartbreaks.
And I'll never trivialize the importance of anything that gives us modern people a reason to tend to our relationship with the Ground.
I wish you all beauty, and the deep-soothing balm of Hope as you plan your gardens for next season. It is a great act of faith in the possibility of the future to dream of flower gardens to come. And it is an even greater act of defiance against every force that would rather us worn down, running, and living in scarcity instead of planting refuges, tending to our broken hearts, and working toward a future of our mutual thriving.
Never let anyone make you believe that beauty is a frivolity.
Here's to the living wild Earth, and to the winter-dreaming of flower gardens to come.
~Liz
P.S. They're really not that fussy in northern climes, once you get the hang of it--and I'll send you a ton of care instructions, tips, and tricks to help you have best season yet!
