Planting out the dahlias

It’s the burgeoning season. Everything is springing into growth in the potager. Apart from four beds: three which will hold the brassicas, and the long one right next to the fence which is my flower patch.

My cut flower patch.

And this year I have gone a bit dahlia mad.  I always need a steady supply of big dramatic colours for my weekly bouquets. And even though I have my doubts about the dahlias, there is one thing you have to admit. They produce. Flowers upon flowers upon flowers.

If the mole rat doesn’t get to them first.

So this year I have a cunning plan.  The dahlias are going to be sunk into the ground in pots. That way no critters can run along the mole runs and munch on the juicy roots.

Well juicy tubers in the case of dahlias. 

And it’s slow work. You have to fend off the above ground wild creature first. Artur thinks anyone sitting down in his potager is fair game. He is such a lap sitter at the moment. Easy to leap onto one’s lap when the victim is sitting down.

He flops so elegantly and stretches out to get maximum contact.  I can’t push him off as he is so happy having a snooze in company.  But with a dozen plants to get into the ground I had to wriggle and fidget about to put him off.  He eventually slunk off into the shade to await another moment when I sat still.

I had to plan what I was going to do with all the soil. And I came upon a solution.

My new lavender bank has two rows of plants. The lowest one has perfectly constructed planting bowls where I can pour two buckets of water over each plant every two weeks.

But the upper level was poorly created. By me.  So I spent the afternoon ferrying buckets of soil that I excavated from the flower bed to build up the lavender bank.

It was fun bucket and spade work. A bit like building sand castles, but making moats around lavender plants instead.

I will need to mulch to make the whole job one I can tick off my list.  But I have run out. Well, I have run out of time to chip sticks.

And I have run out of sacks of the black stuff.  So for now I can just admire the construction and get back to the dahlia planting.

I am following the line of the irrigation hose to get my distances lined up with the drip system.  So I have put the dahlias all along the left had side.  You can see that I have mulched all around with my very last sack of compost.

And for an encore I have planted out more cosmos, calendula neon, asters and a few other plants whose names have escaped me. It must be a touch of the sun. The weather was glorious today and I think I might even have slightly sunburned arms. In early May. Fancy.