In early June, I published an essay about the garden to come in the front yard of Detroit Garden Works called “Color Scheming”. A dahlia named cafe au lait I had read about on Gardenista had gotten my attention. It did not take long for me to decide to organize and design the entire garden around that coffee infused with cream colored dahlia. My grower managed to obtain and grow on 30 of them for me.
The dahlias got planted in the big garden beds in front of the shop, along with a white dinnerplate dahlia, white and lime nicotiana, and lots of purple and bicolor angelonia. The window boxes were planted with lots of different flowers that I imagined would feature the color and form of that extraordinary dahlia. 
The first cafe au lait bloomed today. The color is everything I had imagined-smoky, creamy, a beige based utterly pale pink . I cut that stem, and set it in lots of different places in the window boxes – just to see how and if the colors I had chosen for those boxes would compliment a dahlia that I had never seen before. The following ridiculously large number of pictures is a sign of how pleased I was.
The coffee and white dahlias are just coming on now-there are buds showing all over the big in ground planting. As I have said before, any response to color is a highly individual and emotional response. I am delighted with what I am seeing. The excitement over the coming of the dahlias is one of many reasons why I enjoy gardening. Some days, everything going on in the garden is all good.
Today was a very good day to be a gardener.
The cultivation of dahlias brings to mind the famed Longfellow little girl verse. “When she was good/She was very very good/But when she was bad she was horrid”. Even if you give them everything you’ve got in the way of rich soil, good sun, staking, fertilization, good air circulation and your utmost devotion, it may not be enough. You still need the blessing of the patron saint of all sulky, troublesome prima donna garden flowers-whomever she may be. Not that one could ask for that blessing; it must be bestowed. I do have one client for whom they perform on demand. He says its the soil-I say what he manages with them is magic. 
Some sport blooms so large the word vulgar comes to mind. Some “dinnerplate dahlias” have stems so weak the plant perpetually looks like someone spent the last hour giving them a thorough dressing down. Fungus spreads like crazy from the bottom up; I have grown plenty of dahlia stalks with a few anemic and forlorn flowers on top. When I grow them in pots, I face them down with something that has the decency to grow vigorously, and hide those ungainly dahlia legs. 
So why do I grow them? In a good year, they are magnificent. Loaded with flowers, they remind me of the 19th century flower paintings of Rachel Ruysch; they are supremely grand. The range of colors and forms is astonishing. This dahlia is a “formal decorative” type. Park Princess has petals shaped like quills; this form is known as a “cactus dahlia”. 
I am looking at these dahlias now as they have been at their peak this first week of October. There is something to recommend about how they last into the fall. They do hate cold weather; the best grown dahlias are those that have spent May and June in a greenhouse. They transition from that museum like setting to the Michigan outdoors poorly. It can take weeks before they loose that insulted look, and take hold.
I think a too early planting can set them back such that they never recover. They thrive in that rarefied hothouse atmosphere where wind, bugs, cold soil, and various pathogens are simply not permitted. Dahlias are not great garden plants; they are an event you may wish to attend.
Some of these party girls dress in a way that’s just plain fun to look at. When they are at their overblown best, they make me smile.
I like the fireworks going-on feeling of my terrace pots this year. Most of that has to do with how they have grown. I picked the colors and plants yes, but nature has proved unusually cooperative. We have had cool temperatures all summer, and now, regular rain. The usual bugs and disease must be at someone else’s house.
The Mital terra cotta gargoyle pots on their pedestals have never looked so rowdy and profuse. I grow nicotiana mutabilis every year for exactly the reason you see here. The showy oregano in this pot gave up and died, but I hardly notice. Besides, this pair of pots started out mismatched-I like that they will end up mismatched.
These two licorice plants have made a flared skirt of themselves. The shape is especially attractive with the garland pattern on the pot. Did I plan this part-absolutely not. Anyone who gardens gets to enjoy the unexpected.
The New Guinea impatiens this year are unbelievably gaudy-what fun. Even my million bells, which usually sulk as I have very alkaline water, are cooperating. My dahlias do not have mites or mildew. The cool weather has slowed the flower production on the cannas, but the foliage alone is well worth having.
