Remember those little green sprouts I posted photos of a few months back? They are coming into their own and are ready for their close-up.
The amazing thing about dahlias is their cut-and-come-again disposition. Should you find yourself near a dahlia plant and a flower is approaching bloom, by all means cut the flower off! (Promptly stick it in a vase of 1 part 7Up and 3 parts water and a splash of bleach).Like twenty-somethings with access to too much rum amid lush greens and French colonial architecture, dahlias want nothing but to reproduce. And reproduce like mad. They reproduce (or at least set seed) when a bug, bee or the wind pollinate the flowers. If you cut the flower from the plant before it has chance to set seed, the plant panics and sends forth even more flowers. If you continue to cut its flowers, it will continue to send more blooms forward in hopes that one of those gorgeous blooms will get lucky at the hands of a bee, pollinate and make seeds. The dahlia will bloom until frost if well taken care of.
If you worry about depriving the world of new dahlias by continually cutting its blooms, don't worry. Nature has a back up plan: the dahlia's tuber!
