Weather Chat - 2024

calico20hill

Teddahlia Great digging weather but getting chilly! Thermometer said 34 degrees this morning and I had already decided from looking out at the lawn that we had a "half frost" situation. I suspect damage will show up on some of the foliage later . But a beautiful day today and I bet we can get most of the rest of the tubers out. Yesterday I had Howard dig some of the tuber clumps that have been in a raised bed by the back ramp to the porch...they have been there for 5 years now I think. The pink and cream dahlia I was wondering about has a tag that says HH Cotton Candy. I think it has always frosted before the flower took on its full swirly shape. Lots of tubers to divide and plant in a sunnier spot next year. Its been fun walking up the ramp beside the dahlias...most of them single seedlings tucked into that bed.

calico20hill

Still no freezes in sight on our weather forecasts. We have the dahlias that bloomed this summer out and stored, which leaves plenty of what daylight we get now for the seedlings that have not bloomed. Not sure what to do with those...did they not bloom just because they were too crowded? Might there be some wonderful surprises among them? Or are they just duds.... Will they bloom for Christmas? Strange dahlia year!

Bessie

calico20hill I am also in a dilemma as to which seedlings I save from this year. About 70% of all the dahlias I grow have less than ideal root space, so I don't give them the best growing opportunity. For seedlings, I'm leaning towards only keeping the ones that were very vigorous, and had nice fairly consistent flower production. But I'm a sucker for a pretty flower, and might keep ones to see how they do next year.. With all that said, I'm severely traumatized by gophers. Three steps forward and two steps back.

Teddahlia

"But I'm a sucker for a pretty flower,..."
We have lots of room here and we try to keep all "pretty flowers that make impossible tubers." Generally, it is a mistake but if it is really, really pretty, people put up with the tuber problems. Dick Parshall of Clearview Dahlias has several dahlia friends(who would not want to be his dahlia friend?) and he gives them the poor tuber makers and beyond naming them, Dick is done with them. I saw one of them at his "dahlia friend's " garden and picked it out as the best in the whole garden. It had no future due to the tuber problems.

Bessie

Teddahlia then, with that advice, I should just leave the nice, but not overly vigorous plants with pretty flowers in place, in the ground in my zone 9b garden. If they survive the winter and gophers they will have earned a second chance. I'll dig in the spring, or take cuttings. If anyone especially liked any of the seedling photos I've posted, private message me, and I'll send you some of the plant material in the spring, (assuming the plant is still around!). I figure it might be safer in someone else's garden😳.

calico20hill

I've been following some interesting weather chat for the Pacific Northwest, that is only starting to show up now on the main weather news....Cliff Mass Weather Blog has more details about the Bomb Cyclone we can expect on Tuesday...Power outages, flooding, what ever "Floats your boat", LOL. In other words, we better hope our boats will float! NW folk had better make plans for alternative solutions to cooking Thanksgiving Dinner if the power is out on Thursday. Loss of electric power and Flooding from the creek are likely to be the problems here. We plan to go into Portland on Thursday for Thanksgiving...if Hwy 30 hasn't slid into the Columbia River. or Willamette River....If it has, I guess we will be grilling on our back deck ......

bloomhjelm

Good morning from the first morning after Blowmageddon. Half a million without power including most of the Eastside of King County, WA. Puget Sound Energy is anticipating multiple days of outages while they work on 2.6k+ individual outage areas.

I have my four kids at home but we have a propane fueled fireplace, wood stove, and gas stovetop. Also a propane tank generator for anything we need, but we haven't fired it up yet.

With water, heat, and the outdoors as a natural refrigerator, the main thing is just keeping kids entertained.

calico20hill

Oh yes, I remember those days! A propane fireplace was what made it work. Of course so is a wood stove for cooking. At least you are not having an ice storm with this round!

The only effect we have here is that our nearly empty creek is now half full and able to ripple along and make water music for me :-). The wind does not seem to hit much where we are. That is a good thing because along the creek we have a lot of half dead old ash trees that would make a real mess and probably block the creek and make it flood. The clouds are really streaming along from South to North this morning but it is not raining now so they just add interest to the scenery!

Teddahlia

Portland missed out on the exciting weather. For us it was only a lot of weather forecasters who were very nervous about what might happen here if the "bomb cyclone" would swerve and hit us. It was a non event here as all we had was slight wind and some rain. On the good side, the warm air from it has gotten our temps into the 50s and that is nice for digging in the mud. Lots of mud.
Picture I posted to Facebook. It is embarrassing to say that I am unsure which orange waterlily it is. I will state my excuse is that the picture is too blurry. 😝

JessieC

I’ve been wondering about our friends in the way of the storms in Washington! I hope everyone is coping with the power outages and bad weather. Stay safe!

Teddahlia

The 4 inches of rain we have had in the last several days has gotten the tuber clumps very wet. We dug today and decided to wash them immediately as the clumps are so heavy. More digging tomorrow and we are having a few more days of digging weather in the forecast. We have quite a few to dig and if we can work tomorrow and the next day, that would really make a difference.

seedling picture.

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