Dahlias – Gardens For Goldens

We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Program

For the first time in months, I have a weekend without a work project – and without a puppy. Little Journey has found her forever home.

Now named Charli, she greeted her new Mom with a smother of kisses and flat out stole her heart. But she picked the right heart, because this Mom is an experienced dog person and a good leader with kind instincts. Charli has grown kids to play with, a new Dad who is making her steps so she can reach the people bed, and a one-year-old canine cousin named Max who will keep her in her place. She has a big backyard, lives by the lake, and when she is old enough, will become Mom’s running companion. I could not be happier for her – or for her new family.

Another delight: my wayward gardeners have returned as fall has arrived.

Ina finished making the shed immaculate and moved the Lilac tree to a much happier home. Peggy and Steve were back with Mary who was being watched carefully having spent two days in intensive care for eating raisins!

And Maria set the stage for fall with her scarecrows and adorable pumpkin patch.

Anna is permanently excused (until Rose pruning day) for her work as an adoption counselor – and care of her latest charge, Nala.

The garden, meanwhile, is stunning.

Once towering stalks of budding Asters are now bent and beautiful mounds with their purple blossoms covered in bees and butterflies.

The Dahlias have never been larger or continued their blooms so late in the season.

They have thrived in their new home.

And Going Home photos are now staged in front of turning trees – creating loads of heavenly leaf mulch to lighten the clay soil in the beds this spring.

It is time for reveling in the colors of Autumn, raising the beds, and planting bulbs before putting the garden to rest for winter.

And hopefully, a brief hold on puppies!! Happy life, ~~Journey~~ Charli girl!

Return to the Garden

“Where will you begin?” she asked.
“At the beginning, I guess.”

This sign was posted over our shed door. The weeds are indeed laughing. Two hours after the last puppy of Irish’s litter was adopted, in rolled the van with six more! I can’t show them to you due to a promise we made to the kind human who brought them to us. She saw that they were in need and intervened. We won’t give her up as she may yet return with more.

Needless to say, my hoped for return to the garden was again delayed. And the weeds took full advantage. The blueberries were overrun, the paths were overtaken, crabgrass invaded, and the garden shed disappeared in a mass of cobwebs.

Maria refused to weed the herb garden bed; she said that it was all to be gone or she was washing her hands of it. I couldn’t bear to see it all dug up and sitting empty; we have months to go before the winter. So it has been reclaimed as a community bed. Let the whining begin.

As the last litter numbers dwindled over the course of a week, I was able to spend a little more time in the garden. Bit by bit, it is getting there. And with our last two little fluff balls now safely home, the garden is ~~mine~~ ours. And the weeds? Well who is laughing now?!

The Dahlias are beautiful.

The blueberries are once again peacefully co-existing with the California poppies and smothered in the pine needles they love.

The grapes are still producing…in September!

And as our rivers are still full from our long wet winter, I am watering, watering, watering to bring the garden back to life.

Now that the weather is beginning to cool, the gardeners, too, are making their return. Maria is planning her October display, Dee cleared out the daylilies,

Rob rebuilt the leaf mulch container for fall,

and Ina cleaned the garden shed!

Puppies are a joy – and they need what they need when they need it. Many of their new families stay in touch and I delight in seeing the pictures of them growing as fast as the weeds in the garden. (This is Mocha with his new big brother.)

I am so proud of them. I miss them a tiny bit. Still, I am happy to be back in the garden.

Rescue is Only The Start

When we set out to save this Memorial Garden from returning to the earth, we had no idea where the journey would lead.

It was a mission of rescue, re-creation, and re-envisioning.

Today – it is this.

But a garden is a living, breathing thing.

It changes over time; plants grow and morph; and once-happy companions need to find new homes. Like our Dahlias – recently relocated –

because their once-full-sun setting…

has been cloaked in shade.

Or this graceful rose, wild and tangled in its old spot…

now supported and delighted in its new home.

Rescue is only the beginning for our dogs, as well.
The work only starts with pulling a dog from a shelter, taking in a stray, or assuming responsibility for a surrender.
Some of our dogs come to us already blooming; they just need to be replanted (Seru!).

Others require training and TLC to bring out their best selves (Jackson!).

While we work through that process, transformations take place. They grow, become more confident, and come into their own (Chief!)

Sadly, sometimes, these are the dogs that wait. For all of their readiness, people have a hard time letting go of the dog’s past and embracing its future (Nico…adopted today…we told you it would happen, boy!).

When a plant outgrows its space, it sends gentle signals at first.

Eventually, it will struggle – deprived of the very things that made it grow so strong and well.

I hope these special pups will not lose hope or faith as they wait for that special someone who recognizes that all they need is a new start and new place to call ‘home’ (we’re working on it, Riley!).

Our work for this garden is a gift.

So too is our volunteers’ work to grow the potential of these pups into the great dogs they can and have become (Nick and Nora!).

Rescue is only the start.
‘Home’ is the ending.

The Dahlia Days of Summer

Elegant. Beauty. Fleeting. Summer.

Second winds

After weeks of scorching hot and dusty dry – we caught a weather break and had unseasonably mild temperatures for a bit. The garden got its second wind, and sent blooms skyward again.

Spectacular Sunflowers…

Dazzling Dahlias…

Daylilies…

A second round of Delphinium…

And the long-awaited appearance of those elusive Naked Ladies.

Then – on Sunday – something truly amazing: clouds and a very light rain. You don’t realize how much you miss those drops until you live in California through three years of drought. It was short-lived, but spread a hush of gray over the garden.

From riot to quiet.

“When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” ~ Benjamin Franklin (Lucky agrees!)

Even the dragonflies were smiling.

Summer Signs

The surest signs of summer: The arrival of sunflowers…

the return of the Dahlias…

Golden sunsets –

sun setting Goldens…

And water dogs – of course!

Here’s to the lazy days of summer!

Dahlias returned

Before I began this journey to rebuild the Homeward Bound Memorial Garden, I had no experience at all with Dahlias. They were the gift of a volunteer gardener and fell into my charge. I watched them blossom through the summer into magnificent plates of color and fell in love.

I dutifully dug them up in the fall; placed them in a box of vermiculite following instructions I had read, sprinkled lightly with water and a little prayer, and then left them covered in the dark, cold garage. Every six weeks or so I would open the box and add a few more sprinkles to ensure they didn’t dry out until this weekend, when I pulled them out of darkness. To my delight and amazement, each “eye” had a tiny shoot springing forth. Today, they were returned to their spot in the garden. With any luck, the Dahlias will spring forth within a couple of weeks.

“Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower.” ~ Shigenori Kameoka

All sorts of little joys were sprouting forth in the garden this weekend; the arrival of blueberries where thorny blackberries once ruled,

Blooming Honeysuckle and Clematis

Jerusalem Artichoke and Rose Campion…

and multiplying gardeners! Randy and Vonnie were back to check in on their recently planted Butterfly Garden, to continue the attack on the driveway brush, and to take their latest adopted pup, Chelsea to training class.

One of our dog walkers recruited her mother, a seasoned gardener to join our effort. It is a great way for them to have some time together around shared passions, and we could not be more delighted. Welcome Diane!

And our newest recruit, is but a sprout herself. This is Alexandria.

Her dog goes to class on Saturdays, and while she waits, she loves to wander the garden. This week she helped me with weeding and watering while she explained photosynthesis to me at a million words a minute. A gardener is born.

“The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.” ~ Gertrude Jekyll

Finally, this sweet girl, Roxy, and her foster mom, Michele, were a surprise find and a story all their own. More on them to come soon!

Until then…happy week…from the Homeward Bound Memorial Garden!

Lifted

As we put hundreds of bulbs into the Homeward Bound Memorial Garden for next spring, it was time to raise the summer ones for winter. With more than a week of rain in the forecast, it was time to lift the Dahlias that delighted us for so many months.

To protect them from frost and rot, they will be dried, stored in vermiculite or sand, and then divided next spring, so we can grace the garden again next summer and fall. The space looks so empty, but beneath it waits Allium bulbs for a late spring/early summer show while the Dahlias get started again.

With everything dying back now, I drew a map of the Perennial and Hummingbird beds, so I would remember where everything is. An overlay of tracing paper indicates where the bulbs are planted. Now I have only one problem. Space!

Ina was right. No more plants! My shopping days are over. I swear.