Every time I went my best friend’s house last summer, she had the most beautiful flower arrangements tucked here and there all over her house. Tons of dahlias exploded everywhere from all sorts of beautiful vases. I got to talking to her about her flowers and she let me in on a secret. She had  planted a “cut garden” in her backyard so she could have fresh flowers in the house all summer long. Such a fantastic idea!!!

We were super busy last summer doing all sorts of yard projects, but the idea of a “cut garden” stuck with me and I started creating a mental catalog of all the flowers I would love to fill our home with…the list was long!

However, dahlias were at the top of my list! They come in all different colors and I just love them…they filled my wedding bouquet and I can’t wait for them to fill my house. After talking with The Renaissance Man we agreed to plant dahlias along the fence line between the honeybees and the apple tree.

I started by raking back the bark dust and then digging holes for each clump of bulbs. I planted the bulbs about six to eight inches deep and about a eighteen inches apart. And then watered them fairly heavily after they were planted.

I bought the bulbs from Al’s Garden Center in Sherwood, and each package came with two clusters of blubs. I selected dahlias that were on the smaller size so that we could easily bring them into the house for table arrangements. Some dahlias come in “dinner plate” size and they’re a little too big sometimes.

And here are the dahlias I selected…Hayley Jane, Sun Explosion, Christine, Santander, and Pippi.

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but the key to planting anything once you’ve laid bark dust is to have a wheel borrow that you can put spare soil into. It makes everything ten times easier!

Once everything was in the ground, the only thing left to do was rake the bark dust back into place. Now we wait for the dahlias to bloom…

And while I wait…I think I’ll take some pictures of our cat Whiskey. She says “Mom, why are you always pointing that shiny machine at me? All I want are loves…do you want to scratch my chin?”