Wednesday, November 29, 2006

My First Ever Tree Dahlia Flowers

10 feet tall.




A frost came dangerously close to nipping these in the bud, but the flowers managed to open for me. Ahhhhhhhhh.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:05 PM

    Oh what beautiful blooms against the blue sky! Inspiring! Thanks for the cheer your pictures bring, especially as the cold sets in.

    Garden Gran

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  2. Beautiful! Of course, I have questions.

    10 feet?! Do you have any shots of the whole plant? Does it need to be staked? Where did you get it? The only commercial source I'm aware of is Plant Delights.

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  3. No shots of my whole plant, but if you scroll down to the last photo in my post titled Friday, November 10, 2006,November in my garden, you'll see more of the foliage and you'll also see it up near the roofline of my house, indicating how really super freaky tall this thing is. Also, Google "tree dahlia" or "Dahlia imperialis" and you'll see some shots that give you more perspective.

    I'm lucky to have seen spectacular mature stands of tree dahlia in Berkeley, CA and Mendocino, CA. Growing them here in the Valley will be dicier because we experience frosts and freezes. In fact, tonight I must cover my citrus, etc. How the heck am I going to cover my tree dahlias? We'll see.

    Annie's Annuals is another commercial source, but I got mine through a GardenWeb trade.

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  4. Angela, that's pretty spectacular!

    Glass empty - no way to cover it adequately.

    Glass full - you got to see it in bloom before the frost.

    Some Austin people use strands of mini-lights on tender plants and I'm considering that for tonight, because we're heading down to hard freeze, too. Good luck!

    Annie at the Transplantable Rose

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  5. Happy to report that the flowers are fine. I ran out of frost cloth before I got to the tree dahlia, so I propped the stems closer to the house with my decorative bamboo ladder. The leaves are looking a little crispy today, but the flowers are still amazing.

    Also amazing was the flock of snow geese that flew overhead while I was somewhat grumpily covering my plants at 10:30pm. First, I heard their barking calls, then looked up and saw a white v-formation of flapping wings in stark, glowing contrast against the night sky. It was like something out of a dream or a movie.

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  6. Hi, I have one of those too. I've had it for 4yrs. haven't seen it bloom. It gets the flower bulbs. All it needed was mayby another month, then the frost. I always wondered what the flowers looked like now I know. I never knew that they were so beautiful. I have 3 stalks coming up this year, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed. Thank you for posting the pictures. I love them.
    Shari Reed

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