Iris and shrub roses in full bloom.
The next step in the process was to get three of the six beds ready for planting dahlia tubers, and that began with driving in the T-posts.
When the horses first came home to the farm, the perimeter fences were all board, but a lot of temporary fencing on the interior of the driveway had to be put up in a hurry, and that was done with T-posts and electrified tape fencing. Eventually, we got board fence up on every pasture, and pulled the T-posts up and stored them as we went. One of the chief rules of farming: don't throw things away! Over the years, the T-posts have come in handy for all sorts of tasks, even if using the hammer to drive them into the ground is a special kind of torture - if you know, you know.
We set up the posts at intervals along the edges of the beds, and then used bird netting on the exterior to keep the dog from digging in them. *sigh* You can't ever forget to factor in Strider.
This would have been the time to set up the supportive netting, but alas, we didn't have it ordered yet.
Next came the landscape fabric, to act as a weed barrier and a means of keeping all the freshly amended soil from eroding in the spring rains.
Then, it was time to plant the tubers.
The tubers themselves were ordered and purchased in the months leading up to the last frost date - April 15th here. A mix of locally-bought tubers from the hardware store, and some ordered from Eden Brothers and Breck's Bulbs. Since this was our first time planting dahlias, we wanted to make sure we had some of the trendy staples - like Jowey Nicky and Cafe au Lait - and then filled in with some more economical, but beautiful varieties from Lowes.
We cut holes in the fabric, buried the tubers horizontally, eyes up, and labeled each carefully, in the ground and on paper. Then, it was time to wait and see what germinated.
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