Finally planted the dahlias, which have unadvisedly been sitting in the box they arrived in for a few weeks now as they got stored under a pile of chaos in the kitchened lounge. I'm sure they will be fine.
Managed to get them out to the shed along with a bag of compost (need to stock up on my peat free as running out) and tucked them in nicely into 2 litres pots.
Dahlias tubers are such strange looking items hanging in dry bulbous pendants that never look like they have an ounce of life in them. As soon as you plant them though the magic starts to happen. All that stored up energy inside gets triggered by the moisture and the light and the nutrients and soon there will be green or red shoots coming up, depending on the type.
This year I'd added some more Bishop of Auckland (dark red) and Cafe au Lait (pale peachy coffee cream) to my collection along with some Bishop of Dover (white) and Bishop of Leicester (pale pink). What i'm hoping for are drifts of single petalled Bishop dahlias with some frothy cafe au laits in between. Still not sure where I'm going to put them but might just invest in some big pots so I can scatter them all around.
A day well gardened.