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Here is a summary of some interesting things that I have noticed in the past three years since I started growing dahlias.
I thought that it might be nice to compile a photo album of all of the different dahlias that we grew in our garden last summer. I have written the name of each variety on the caption, which is visible if you hover over the photo.
Dahlias have become so popular in recent years that the phenomenon has been described as dahlia mania. I’m not quite sure why there is suddenly so much fuss about them, because dahlias have been around for ages. Part of the reason why they have suddenly taken off is perhaps because you can get so many more varieties these days, which are even more beautiful and exotic than what was available in the past. The last time mum and I went to our bach (the New Zealand term for holiday home by the seaside), we gave a calendar comprising images of our garden to our neighbour, whose husband used to mow our lawn and keep the property tidy while we weren’t there. Mary is in her 90s and she couldn’t get over the picture of Peaches n’ Cream on the cover, as well as some of the varieties pictured inside. She is actually the one that introduced me to dahlias soon after I discovered gardening. I was very interested to look around their property to see what plants they grew. She always had cactus varieties in her garden. Mary had never seen anything like the dahlias in Floret’s range and was quite amazed by how the plant has evolved over the years. I am nowhere near as old as her, but even when I first started gardening a decade ago, we didn’t have the range we now have, at least not in this country. On one hand, this is a great thing because we have access to so many new, exciting plants. The flipside is that the sharp increase in imported tubers due to dahlia mania has meant that the bacterial disease gall is much more prevalent in New Zealand gardens than it was in the past.
Why dahlias are so fascinating and worth growing
Downsides to growing dahlias
I am currently in the process of updating my website. I have written a lot of articles about gardening over the past seven years and I want to try and make them more accessible so other gardeners are able to use that information to help them develop their own gardens.
New domain name The eagled eyed will notice that I have a new domain name. I have moved from www.anitakundu.co.nz to www.anitakundu.com. If you have bookmarked the old site, it should automatically transfer you to the new site. When I first established my website, I did want that domain name but it wasn’t available. Things have changed since then. Since I discovered that my website audience is not just limited to New Zealand but I am attracting a substantial number of visitors from overseas countries, it made sense to try and broaden my horizons. I remain dedicated to encouraging and inspiring others to get into gardening, wherever they live. It makes me happy that overseas visitors find my content interesting and useful, too. Index to all of the articles in my free weekly newsletter I have put together an index, by year, of all of the topics covered in my gardening newsletters, to make it easier for people to locate information that they are looking for. Unlike my blog posts, I don't think articles in my newsletters (which are similar in style to blog posts) will appear in search engine results. This now appears as a tab at the top of the page, next to my newsletters. Please don't be put off by the fact that these articles were written in previous years. They still contain a lot of relevant information to help people learn the basics of gardening, including how to propagate different flowers and vegetables. I try to keep all my material as fresh and interesting as possible, which means that I try to avoid repeating subjects unless I have new ideas and thoughts. This means that you will inevitably have to persue back issues of newsletters if you would like to find material I have written about a gardening topic. Search box You will also see that there is a new tab, next to the index of articles in my newsletters, called “search site”. This should also help people locate information they are seeking more easily. I have recently started reflecting on where plants in our garden are originally from, because people often ask me the same question about myself. Most of our flowers, fruits, veggies and herbs in the garden are from other countries. I have started writing a series of blog posts to explore some of our favourite flowers and edibles we have grown over the years which are from overseas. This is the last post in this series. To close, I would like to cover plants we have grown in our garden that originate from Australia and New Zealand, which is the region where I live. Jarrahdale and Queensland Blue Pumpkins While pumpkins are thought to originate from North America (which I covered in my previous blog post), the varieties Jarrahdale and Queensland Blue come from Australia. I don’t think it’s exactly a coincidence that both of these varieties perform exceptionally well in our garden, since they are from this part of the world. As I have mentioned when covering our favourite edibles which come from Europe, the pumpkin Musquee de Provence which comes from Southern France does not perform well in our microclimate. In all the years that I have faithfully sown a packet of seeds every spring, we have only ever harvested one pumpkin. Both of these varieties have great flavour and also store very well. Kamo Kamo I enjoy growing a type of squash called Kamo Kamo, which is native to New Zealand and was consumed by the Maori, the indigenous people to NZ. It needs very long hot summers in order to crop well. Because our summers start later every year, are shorter and temperatures are cooler due to climate change, we usually only get a couple even if I sow an entire packet of seeds. New Zealand Spinach
As the name suggests, NZ Spinach is also native to this country. It performs well in warm weather, so I recommend planting seedlings outside when summer has started. |
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