DEL.ICIO.USMARTHA TATE
Bold, beautiful Dahlias add a cheerful mix to any garden
For The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
One of my earliest memories of dahlias (we’re talking 1950s) can be traced back to my very witty uncle, Calton Groover. My family would pull up in his driveway in College Park, and over to the side was his garden, where the tall, imposing plants were lined up like soldiers tethered to poles. The flowers were literally the size of dinner plates, and each bloom seemed more fantastic and gaudy than the next.
According to his daughter, Anne Williams of Stockbridge, her father loved to take bouquets to the local bank and pass them out to friends. When asked the secret to growing the showy flowers, he would answer with his loud, infections laugh, “Elephant manure.”
Alyce Dolan
Mixed dahlias in raised beds in Alyce Dolan’s Smyrna garden. Dolan is a member of the Dahlia Society of Georgia.
There might have been a grain of truth in this, his daughter says. Every year a carnival would stop near the College Park-East Point border, and her father would take his pickup truck over to shovel manure to put on his dahlias and tomatoes.
Dahlia Society of Georgia member Alyce Dolan remembers her mother’s dahlias and how well they grew in the foothills of South Carolina. When Dolan and her husband Paul moved into their home in Smyrna four years ago, she finally had the full sun it takes to grow the flowers.
“My daughter gave me my first one, called ‘Kidd’s Climax,’ and it was a great success,” says Dolan, who works at Home Depot’s corporate headquarters in Vinings.
Taking a blank, grassy hill that sits atop a hard layer of shale rock, the Dolans carved out a colorful garden that is a mecca for hummingbirds and butterflies. Mixed in with perennials and annuals on the terraced hill are patio dahlias, and on the edge of the garden is a space dedicated to growing the taller types.
“I’m really an amateur at this,” says Dolan. “I’m not into classifications and competition. I grow them just because I love them.”
Dolan’s hillside is full of a cheerful mix of colors, ranging from deep, almost black-red (‘Rip City’) to a sunshiny yellow (‘Bo-lei’) to the orangy-red cactus flowered ‘Fisherman.’ A favorite red ball-shaped dahlia is ‘Hy Sockeye,’ which has striations on the underside of the bloom. Dominating the mix is her original ‘Kidd’s Climax,’ which blends glowing lavender-pink and yellow.
Dolan says her greatest satisfaction comes from taking bouquets to work.
“People come up to my desk and are fascinated by the colors and shapes. It is just a joy, joy, joy to grow them and to give them away.”
Martha Tate is a writer who lives in Atlanta.
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