Michelle's Dahlia Tour Part 1 | Pond House Garden

Hi you! Today we are going through the Dahlia Garden and I wanted to start here before it gets too hot today. It's supposed to get up to 95 degrees. So we'll start in my new bed. This was put in just brand new this year and then we'll head over to other areas of my garden to look and see how the dahlias are doing over there compared to over here. The great part about dahlias, besides the fact that it reminds me of my granddad every time I'm out here, is that they are fantastic for making bouquets and flower arrangements and they bloom from July all the way for us July, August, September, sometimes even October. I start pulling the tubers out of the ground and they're still blooms and it kind of makes me sad but I want to make sure that they get out in time and they winterize and then then they can produce fantastic blooms again for the next season. Let's start right now in this garden and I'll walk you through the different varieties that I have here and I'll let you know the names and in August and in September we'll probably do a follow-up video as well just to show you how much they change over the season as far as the number of blooms, the size of the bush itself, and just the height that a lot of them get to as their max. So this is just the beginning. Come on, walk through with me. These beautiful pink flowers here and and so this one produces a whole bunch of these. I mean they're not small, they're about the same size as this one over here but a lot different. It has this really cute little yellow center and then the pinks into the really dark pink or the fuchsia color in the center there and this is a great one for cut flowers because there's so many blooms, so many little blooms on this one. Unfortunately down here this is Fancy Pants but I'll have to film that maybe next week when more of them are out. Again this is just like Bloomquist Sweet. It has a whole bunch of different or sorry a whole bunch a multiple amount of blooms that come out on the bush. It's really really spectacular when it first comes out. This one's been out for about I would say three weeks now so and again it's a nice compact bush and it has multiple flowers. This little guy tucked in here, Mom and Dad's is doing a lot better than my little guy but this one is Camano Love and Camano Love is another ball variety here. Yeah but you look there it's a nice little mauve colored Dahlia. Now it's facing that way because it wants to go to the sunshine which is over this way so it's looking that direction but it's really compact and I think Mom and Dad's is a lot bigger and we'll see that later today. This one I love this one. This one I've been waiting to see and there's a lot coming out right now and let me try to pull it this way. Oh this one's just starting to give way. It's a little older now but look at how big this is. Isn't that awesome? Oh my gosh. This one did not bloom for me last year. I had it in the wrong place in the garden. It's massive. It starts off like that. It is just loving this heat and there's a whole bunch of them about to open up on this one so I'm excited. I'm gonna say that about many of these. Now this one is just about over as well and it's quite different and here's one right beside it just starting to come out and it's reaching up for the sunshine. It's way at the top here and this is what it looks like when it's just about to come out. A beautiful purple color, burgundy inside in the middle and this is very tall but the leaves seem to be doing better than what they were. I was having problems with this one earlier in the season so I'm going to start looking into what I need to use for fertilizers and whatnot. Next to that we have this one which is stunning again. Look at that. Isn't that gorgeous and that's just coming out as a smaller one. I gave one actually to the neighbor the other day. He's only three years old and so we went through the dahlias and we cut some dahlias for her to take home. The pinks, purples, the yellows, and then the peachy creams. And there's many coming out on this dahlia and beside that we have alamode and alamode is one of my favorites. Take a look at this. Alamode. It's a huge bloom. It has a different pattern in each bloom. Same color tones, different patterns and look you can see here and it has like the pink stripes. Oh and a little bug. Oh and that's Ozzie. He's protecting the front gate. And peaches, pinks, whites, all those beautiful colors. But this one is a huge, a huge, a tall variety and it produces many of these blooms. Just stunning in arrangements. Love it. All right let's go to the other side. And starting here this one is quite low to the ground compared to the other ones. This one here is called Coco Puff and it's these darling little ball shaped flowers and it has the pinks in there, the creamy peachy colors, and there's many of them that come out on the bush at the same time. And I have not deadheaded. Yikes! Ah, bad on me. But anyway these are fantastic again to go into your flower arrangements. And we have some that are still just trying to come out into bloom. Again it's the end of July and we had a real rainy, rainy season all the way up into the second week of July. I didn't know if the dahlias were going to do that well this year so they're a little bit behind but now end of July they are coming out and showing all of their beauty. This one over here this one is called Lifestyle and it's an interesting combination. I love this with the purple and the yellow and there's a few of them coming out. Oh and one down here still. And I had to plant a second one of my favorite. Again this is Alamode and this is one of the spent blooms now that I haven't picked but I couldn't help but plant two of these because I am infatuated by this one. And it's partners over there on the other side. And it looks like I have to start tying these up because they're getting really heavy. And if we end up with a windstorm then they're actually going to crack. That's the one thing about the dahlias is you want to make sure that they are very much supported especially as they start getting the weight at the top. Any kind of windstorm or any kind of animal that runs through here will start to crack these and it's a really really sad morning when you come out and these are all like this. It makes for a great vase that day because now you're trimming up all the blooms and taking them inside but it breaks the plant and it's really disheartening for the rest of the season. So yes I have to get out here and do some staking for sure. This is not a dahlia Michelle. No it is not. Let's just take that out of there. Yikes. Can I do it one-handed? Yeah thank you. No thank you. Because we have this little guy in here hiding and so he needs to come out and play for a little while. And he wasn't getting the sunshine anymore because that weed was taking over. But yes I do have to deal with a little bit of issues here with I'll have to look into some fertilizers or see what I need to do to green up some of these some of these leaves. This is a brand new bed to us this year so we didn't have a lot of time actually to go in and test soil to see what is in the mineral content in the soil already. So there might be something that's kind of not working a hundred percent. But I had so many bulbs I had to get them in right away so so we'll just have to deal with what it is this year. Also many of you probably have noticed that we like I said we had a slug issue and that's because we had so much rain in June and in the very beginning of July for a couple weeks. Oh I just love that one. Just love it. Hi Oz you hot? I know it's a hot day already and it's only 8 in the morning. Hi buddy. What did you get into? Your nose is all dirty. Yeah you like the dahlias don't you? They smell pretty. Yes they smell pretty. Okay and now we'll go and take a look at the dahlias in the other garden beds which are not doing as wonderfully. There there is this hosta from the extreme heat that we're going through but we will take care of that. Look at this. Oh my gosh this is an Annabelle hydrangea. Seriously look at the size of that bloom. Oh it is stunning. I love this. I want to plant these in one full garden bed. Just gorgeous. But in here I wanted to show you this one. I have one called chai ray and this is such a cutie. Look at that the red and the yellow. It's a bit of a smaller bloom. It's not too small but like you like you can see it's in my hand here but it comes up and it's usually quite bushy. It would be like the ones in the new garden bed but we're not doing really well with the fertilizer I think this year. So this is quite small. It was also planted about two weeks behind the other garden bed that I just showed you. But she's catching up so hopefully if we have a good August and September this will be a lot different than what it is right now. Really cute. Okay let's go and find another one. This is a whole area that I planted with Bloomquist Sweet. One, two, three, four, and five. And they're all doing wonderful. Two of these ended up getting attacked actually by aphids so they're a little bit behind the other ones right now. I had to deal with an aphid spray. I think I used like a Safer's soap. There's different ways you can deal with aphids and we can talk about that in another video. But the Bloomquist Sweet, it is wonderful for dividing. So if you want to buy one tuber and end up dividing them into like 10 in one season this is the plant for you. So a little Bloomquist Sweet again. So darling. And there is a ton of them coming up on here. Again these were planted two weeks behind the ones in the large bed that I just showed you. They'll catch up and they've got good irrigation here as well. So I think these ones are going to be looking lovely into August and September. Now this is an example of things not going so well. These ones were planted only a couple weeks ago. So really late into the season. Again we still had quite a bit of slug issues that we were dealing with. So you can see that a lot of these have slug damage. All these leaves. As well as we had deer and bunnies coming through here. So they took off or tried to taste a few of these. But they're trying. They're struggling but they're trying. And I didn't want to get rid of them because I had all these ones sitting around in black pots just looking for garden space. So I'm definitely needing to expand the beds for next year and get these into good soil. But I'm noticing it's because a lot of these are my excess stock. Alamode and a couple other ones. So these are my spares. But I can never bear getting rid of or throwing anything out. Isn't that terrible? I probably should have given these to a few neighbors and friends. But I'll keep that in the back of my mind for next year. Dad and I are going to have so many tubers to divide. So this is going to be a fun 2023 coming up. And again same with these. This was all excess stock or stock that I was growing on. Because I didn't think it was going to actually make it. And they have. They're doing well. This side of the yard gets this really bright sunshine. Morning sunshine. So sorry it's a little bit overexposed here. But there's quite a few of them. They're all on irrigation. And some of them are backed here by a drip line. But for instance Lady Darlene. I can't wait to see. She's doing really well. And this one was like on its last legs. I did not think that it was even going to turn into this kind of a plant. So even though it's certainly not huge and shrubby like the other ones. They're trying. So maybe like I said August, September is going to be the month for them. But I have quite a few planted in here. And then finally in my herb garden. Which gets the most sunshine. This is like an intense intense area in the afternoon. Which is why I love sitting here and reading. And having a glass of water with my mint leaves in it. I love the heat. But the Dahlias this year. They used to be nice and bushy here. And I think that we've got a problem with over watering. Because of the rain this year. And also under fertilizing. And in the winter time this actually starts to flood. So a lot of the nutrients in the soil are washed out. And I didn't replenish it. I just kind of popped these in. And boy oh boy can you ever see the difference. Between the raised garden bed and this area. I have a name on this one. Yes. Skipley Louise Jean. Or maybe it's Lois Jean. I'll put that up on the screen. And this is a beautiful pink ball shaped flower. Lovely. And this one is. I think this one is called Holly Hill. Yeah. Holly Hill Pinky. Just a little guy. He definitely has not bushed out. But he's producing flowers nonetheless. And Holly Hill Pinky. With just this little fine pink on the outside. And then the white in the middle. And then we have this guy. And this one's really neat. And this is Lauren Michelle. Lauren Michelle is. Let me see. I'm going to try to do this. That's in the sunshine. That's not in the sunshine. Okay. So this one looks like this when it's not in the sunshine. So it's a lot of like. You can see the purple kind of lines on these white petals. But on the back side. See if I can show this to you. Gotta move. The back side of it is all dark purple. So the front is just this beautiful mauve. But the back is this purple. And then that's what shines through when you move it into the sunshine. It becomes much more vivid. Look at that. Beautiful. And hey. It's my namesake. So I'm kind of smitten with this one. And here's one just starting to open up. All right. So what do you think? Is it time to go to Nana Papa's? Let's go!