Around the Yard

Last night I went to check on my peonies again, and noticed that there are now blooms of a different color that are open.  These are a deeper pink.  There are not nearly as many blooms in this darker color, so I don't think we'll get many of them, but they make such a beautiful contrast against the lighter pink blooms that we've been having!

 

Last year I decided I was tired of spending so much money each year on annuals, so I bought a bunch of different bulbs and perennials to see what I could grow that would return year after year.  One of the things I ordered were some dahlia bulbs (okay, apparently they're actually tubers, not bulbs).  The instructions said to pull the bulbs up once they stopped blooming and before the first frost.  Well, since I was still living in a little rental house at that point, with not a lot of garden space, I planted the bulbs in a large flower pot and enjoyed the blooms throughout the summer.  When autumn came I was in full swing with wedding planning, and I totally forgot to do anything with the pot before the first several frosts came.  

One day I pulled the whole pot into my garage and it sat there until February when we moved to the farm.  Then it sat in the garage at the farm for a couple of months too.  All the while it had not had any water, I had never cut off all the dead foliage from last year's blooms, and it had definitely been through several hard frosts.  

I figured I had killed the poor thing, but it was still sitting in the garage this spring.  The Farmer and I were working on cleaning out the garage so that we could actually park both vehicles in it, so I moved the pot outside and threw in a little water just to see what would happen.  The other day I poked around in all the dead foliage and look what I found!

 

Once I saw the little green shoots, I carefully cut away all the dead leaves and stems from last year.  I added a bit more water and they are growing like crazy now!  The same thing happened with my canna bulbs, although they are not rebounding quite as fast as the dahlias.  I figured they were long gone too, but there are several new green shoots coming up.  I love it when I can't kill plants! :)