These are dahlias. I grow mine in pots because they won't survive a Wisconsin winter and lift the tubers every fall and store them in the basement. I listed the specific varieties in another response if you're interested.
The spiky red one in back is Dr. Rick, Big Brother is the flaming one in the center, across the bottom (left to right) are Spartacus, Labyrinth, and Red Labyrinth. Don't know the purple in the back.
If it hadn't rained in 3-4 days, I watered and fed them with a 10-30-20 fertilizer. Best year ever
I always buy a ton of zinnia seeds and just throw them around the rose beds. I never thought about pinching them back beyond picking the occasional bouquet.
You could start with a few in pots and see how they do. I don't know if you would have to lift them for the winter. Almost all of mine are in pots and they have to come inside after the first frost.
I thought about trying crimson clover this year, but one of the raised beds still isn't quite completely built yet and it's too late to expect any useful growth at this point.
Every new desk bouquet could be the last one before spring, so I brought in a big one today.
I especially love Spartacus' blonde highlights. And that big guy in the middle is Sandman, who didn't get a chance to bloom last year before the first frost.🌱
This is my view when I arrive home from work. I don't know how much longer the dahlias are going to hang in there, but there's no frost in the 10-day forecast yet. (Which is two weeks later than usual.🤞) 🌱
intriguing. The subtext of colonialism and racism is buried beneath a layer of onion skin (the narrator is a mixed race PI who fought on the side of the French years ago).
Africa sometime around the start of the 20th century. I think I need to swap it out from my bedtime book to my daytime book. There's a lot of gleaning from context and jumping in and out of hallucinations without warning. Bedtime Quasi is having a hard time following along but the surface mystery is
Now I'm in the middle of Harmattan Season by Tochi Onyebuchi. I had a really good library week a while ago and this came from that haul. I've heard good things about him but haven't read any of his books before, so I got this off the new arrivals. It's a mystical noir set in French colonial west
I followed that with TJ Klune's "latest," The Bones Beneath My Skin. It's everything I've come to expect from TJ - found family, reluctant gays, quirky kids, gentle humor, etc. Maybe not as tight as the Cerulean books, but still worth reading. That said I could have done without the doomsday cult.
My Wednesdays have been busy so I'm a few weeks/books behind here. Bear with me.🐻
I finished Kingdom of Gods. It was okay. It did pick up after the midpoint lull and I don't regret finishing it. But the story was kinda all over the place. I left feeling like it was three novellas in a trenchcoat.
