A quick note on growing dahlias in the hot as hell South

Being in the south, growing dahlias can be a painstaking crop to grow successfully. This year was especially challenging because it was so. f*cking. hot. Early in the season we had unusually high temperatures, coupled with two weeks of rain every single day. Many of my plants were lost to various types of rot. I had decided to just ignore them and hopefully come September the ones that survived may come around. 

Luckily, they did just that. 

Now, financially I’m not really sure it makes sense to grow a flower that is in the ground for at least 6 months and only gives you a small window of harvest until frost. Also taking into consideration that ½ of those flowers are probably unsellable due to insect damage if you are growing organically. AND that the vase life of those flowers is easily ½ of most flowers commonly grown on a flower farm = tough sell at farmers’ markets.

But my god….

What else in the fall is this amazing? For weddings, there is nothing to take it’s place. Nothing. 

So us southern growers will suck it up and accept our complicated, emotional relationship with our dahlias because the alternative is just as awful.