Tag Archives: Dahlia

Not Going Cheap in the Sales

January means planning the spring planting but these days, fewer seed catalogues are landing on my doormat.  Either the postal service is getting worse, or the seed companies are going electronic.  Either way, instead of browsing catalogues, nowadays I am surfing the Web for my gardening fantasies.

I have plenty of seeds left over from summer, so have only needed to supplement them with a few from Ben at Higgledy Garden.  But the internet is a dangerous place and leads me into horticultural temptation.  After the losses of ‘dahliagate’ I was minded to order fresh ones to swell the depleted ranks and while I was browsing those tubers, I could not resist ordering a bulk batch of ranunculus.

My relationship with the Persian Buttercup over the years has been tempestuous, to put it mildly.  The first time our paths crossed, at the Old Place, we managed to produce a fine crop of the multi-layered rose-like blooms.  It seemed so simple:  stick them in a pot in the autumn greenhouse, and by early summer – Boom!

In subsequent years I have tried the same formula, but it just hasn’t worked out.  They have thrown up a few, sometimes weedy, green leaves, but each time they have wilted and died in the pot before spring could arrive.  And this autumn I put them in 9cm pots and they never even bothered to germinate or shoot.  Just rotted.  I desperately want ranunculus in my life, but each time I try, they just swipe left.

I am clearly doing something wrong.   Reading their biog, I see that they like the paradoxical “damp, well-drained soil.”  So, they do not like being dry, but at the first sign of too much water, the corms will melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Mrs B laughed when she knew I had succumbed to the Temptation of Ranunculus once again.  The words of Soft Cell, she regards my attraction to ranunculus as a so so love; the standing joke of the year.  For my part, I tried to make it work and although they didn’t even germinate last time, I wanna make sure it doesn’t happen again. 

Despite my best intentions and ferent hopes, deep down I know that, even if they do manage to produce a few green shoots, I it is likely to be another case of  Say Hello then Wave Goodbye.

Is This a Pivot I see Before Me?

The business buzz word amongst some of my self-employed friends at the moment is “pivot”, to describe a changing of direction in one’s business or lifestyle and some have suggested that we might be mid-‘pivot’ in the Midlife Garden. It is true that ever since the ‘Invitation To Leave’ from my previous employer (I see it as an ‘inflection point’ in my life), I have been searching for an income stream that could be rewarding financially as well as emotionally.  Clearly, this blog is never going to cover both those bases, so I knew I would have to be a ‘change agent’, taking a look at what I enjoy (apart from scribbling random words) and find something truly ‘transformative’ to ‘add value’ to my life (and bank balance).    

Regular readers (both of you) will know how I find enormous emotional rewards in gardening.  But after the success of the cut flowers on show at the 2024 WOTY*, I’ve joined forces with a neighbour to explore ways to monetise our blooming commodities.

First we decided to ‘segment’ this down, to ensure we had flowers for the whole summer.  We took a deep dive, drilled down and, thinking outside the MLG box, we invested in dahlias. Previously regarded as blousy, ostentatious dandies that evoked memories of dreary seventies mixed borders, these could yet prove to be a game changer, producing blooms throughout autumn.  

To move the needle for early blooms, we took a punt on tulips.  We were ‘down on all fours’ with this, looking at it from the client’s-eye view and decided on Luxury Tulips:  stems to mark us out from the ten-for-a-fiver supermarket types in dull hues of red and purple.   So, posh tulips became the ‘moat’.  We ‘swept the sheds’ to make it happen, to ‘action this solve’ and November saw us raking compost on then off, then onto the front bed to get the 500 bulbs to the perfect depth. We waited for April with crossed fingers. 

We chose a price point, to give the customers ‘snackable content’ hoping they will be back for more when spring turns to summer.  Unfortunately, the first stems were snackable to the point of stunted, but, they eventually reached their full potential, proving popular, if unprofitable.  But not all stems will have the same base costs as posh tulips, so our ‘runway’ is longer than it might appear. The tulips were a loss leader, but a striking one at that.

We will take a ‘kaizen’ approach to improve all that we do as we try to get this thing off the ground (after mulching and watering it first).

By the end of the summer, we might have an answer to the question:  is this just a side hustle or could I be pivoting from Ed Biz to Flower Biz?  Only time, ‘brand positioning’, ‘demand generation’, ‘revenue performance management’ and the power of ‘the flywheel’ will tell.

*Wedding Of The Year

The Summer in one day

 

Sunshine and showers

With the summer continuing changeable, one is almost taken aback by a bit of warm sunshine.  Wednesday provided the whole of this season in one day, with light rain followed by torrential rain, which cleared to warm sunshine, during which, with masterful timing I took the dog for a walk.  A good walk only spoiled by Fudge going ballistic at a slightly startled elderly rambler; though Fudge had good cause to complain: the lady was wearing full rambling gear, carrying maps, back packs and hiking stick all accessorized badly with what looked like a yellow bin liner by way of waterproofing.  Enough to freak the most laid back canine.

By the time we returned, the blue skies were being invaded by scudding clouds as the wind got up and blew away any thoughts of a leisurely afternoon sunning myself in the garden.

Instead I prepared the ground for, and planted, lines of swede and chard as well as hedging my bets by planting a couple of seed trays of the same in the greenhouse as well as some small pots of cauliflowers.

At the other end of the reap and sow spectrum, I picked more runner and french beans as well as a courgette (zucchini to our north american brethren) which magically went from the size of a small pencil to torpedo in hours flat.  In between times I had trimmed the tomato plants to stop them taking over the whole greenhouse.

Elsewhere around the garden the are plenty of flowers blooming at long last, with cornflowers for cutting looking good – though how on earth you get them to grow straight I have no idea.  At the Olympic Park they have thousands of the beggars standing straight and tall in vast beds.  Fantastic – but how do they do that?!

Blousy? Moi?

The Love in the Mist are finally blooming joining the Nicotiana in the corner bed.  The scent of Nicotiana is so lovely on a warm evening as we go to shut the chickens in.  And lovely set off with the Love in the Mist and the Cosmos.  Elsewhere there are numerous splashes of colour including the infamously blousy Dahlias (The Old Man is very pleased with them – but they stand out in the flower beds like rambler wrapped in flapping yellow plastic).  I don’t know the names of flowers – I am don’t have the brain for it – but they look kinda nice and next year we will hopefully plan and develop the colour schemes a little more.

So yesterday had all the summer in one: sun, rain, wind, cloud, preparing, planting harvesting and just some good old seasonal flowering.

Nicotiana – great performers