We finally started!

We finally got round to sparking off the dahlia tubers this week although, like everything else to do with the dahlias this year, we're a fair tad behind as some of them should have been started a month ago. Unlike growing veg, or non-show flowers, this may come back to bite us on the arse as everything about their life cycle is strictly timed and we may have just irreparably screwed up that timetable, it pretty much comes down to how fast they start to throw cuttings. With a tad of luck everything will work itself out in the long run but if it doesn't then it's not the end of the world as we're less interested in showing this year due to other time constraints, so it's mainly about preserving our varieties. The fact that this is also our last year as world champions, and we have no hope of defending our title as they're being held in Canada this year, doesn't really help I guess.

And they're off!

I've been around dahlias for years, so I *know* how much they can change from day to day .. hell, sometimes you feel that if you sat there quietly enough then you could actually watch them grow ..... but the speed that the tubers have started throwing shoots is pretty impressive to say the least! We've only had the tubers on the beds for a week and already the majority of them are throwing shoots, even the mary's and bryn's which are normally a tad on the lethargic side when it comes to recognising that it's a new year.

¥