Teddahlia I’m really happy to see this photo because I’m afraid I registered for the show too late and am anxiously on the waitlist for your tour!

KitCMC it's been a really long time, but I seem to remember they root easily in water. They remind me of gigantic Christmas Cactus.

ADS tour of our Hollyhill gardens: Two busloads of dahlia addicts are coming along with a handicap van or two. I believe 120 people have signed up and there is a substantial waiting list. Lunch is being catered. We hosted the ADS tour about a decade ago and have had only 4 or 5 open houses in the 30 plus years we have been here. Preparing for the tour has been a very big job for the both of us and lots still needs to be done. It is not just dahlias as Margaret has put together hundreds of hanging baskets and containers of flowers she grew from seed or propagated from cuttings. Watering the containers of flowers each day in the summer weather is quite an operation and we each do our share each day.

    Teddahlia And the work that you do is deeply appreciated. I am excited for my " bestest friend" from my Island years to see your garden. Between her accident with a weed eater cord that broke her nose and my "shabby deck "accident we may need that van, LOL. Just hope neither of us gets any more banged up before the tour!

    Annie's sunflowers are going wild right now in the garden. The tallest plant has to be around 9.5 ft. tall.

      They’re so cheery with a gorgeous backdrop.

      edewitt Wow, you create beautiful spaces on your property. I’d love to be able to walk through an eager crowd of sunflower-friends all summer!

      edewitt These are lovely! I’ve got a long bed that went in last fall, filled with various echinacea varieties. The Pow Wow White has a nice structure, not unlike your yellow one in the last photo. I don’t know enough about tending them yet, but they look pretty good for year one. I’ll get photos!

      9 days later

      Another of my silly experiments this season was seeing just how tiny I could grow sunflowers from regular sunflower seeds. In general, the closer sunflowers are planted together, the smaller the heads are, and the easier to use them in arrangements. I usually grow them in ground but I wanted to see what would happen in pots.

      I had a packet of Procut White Lite sunflower seeds left from '22 so I put about 20 seeds per 12x12" pot spaced very tightly. They were soooo unhappy growing but I managed to keep them alive. They bloomed and are teeny! They're maybe 1/2" in diameter. They remind me more of mums than they do sunflowers.

        AndreaB they were a lot shorter too - approx. 2 ft tall. 😊
        If I do it in pots again I'll either have larger pots or fewer seeds per pot.

        MissyWeitzel What a cool experiment, it’s hard to imagine these are only 1/2”! How sweet, I bet they’re wonderful in arrangements.

        I would love tiny sunflowers that maintained the form of the big ones! They would be very popular mixed with dahlias for bouquets.

        Teddahlia it’s a Thomas Hardy book (never read it, though).

        I desperately want Jude the Obscure. (The rose). But I have no patience for roses. (Also I think I recall that one wasn’t hardy here, which I have even less patience for).

        Jude the Obscure is my favorite of all roses. It did very well for me on Vashon ISland, WA. It is struggling in the arid summer environment in Northwest Oregon