dashed hopes

Late fall 2009, I hosed off the tuber clumps, sun dryed them and by that evening had them in the mud room grouped by variety (original 18 tubers were composed of 8 different varieties) so I had 18 tuber clumps piled into 8 varietal groups. Each clump had 7 to 12 tubers; by the time I had finished dividing them, there were nearly 200 tubers from my first harvest. Snowberry Farm Dahlias was under way.

Late January 2010, I sorted out the few soft tubers, misted and repacked the rest in peatmoss and stored them in plastic drawers marked by variety.

In late March, many had rooted, none showed buds. Suspicion grew as the tubers didn't. Yet, faithfully, on the 15th of May--a few days after the approved planting time, Mother's day--I planted 1-2 tubers per hole with 4 staked holes per variety-- 32 holes in all.

The 2009-2010 winter was the coldest ever recorded in western Oregon; delay was to be expected. But, by June 10, I could wait no more. I dug up several tubers--all deader than door nails. I looked at my Dahlia rows neatly staked out. I was the queen of Hearts inspecting 32 marked graves where I had with great care buried 50 some headless corpses.

Back in November, I had divided the tubers from the clumps and apparently from their "eyes". Beheaded in such a way, by the spring, they had sprouted ghostly roots in the throws of tubermortis.

I'd planted 1/3 of the tubers I'd harvested. Out of all the remaining tubers, I found 2 Allie Whites with growth stems. TWO.

Snowberry Farm Dahlias was off and running (albiet, headless).

In the beginning...

Last spring 2009, I bought 18 Dahlia tubers from Ginger Clack of Clack's Dahlia Patch. By the end of last summer I had 18 beautiful flowering dahlia plants. In late fall I dug up nearly 200 tubers.