Choosing Calm

10/25/2021

An arrangement picked from my home garden on Saturday for this stormy Monday.

I’ve loved using this compote all season. I find it’s warmer blush tones suit many of the blooms in my garden. Also I’m using a flower frog in here so it’s all environmentally friendly which I love as well that nothing is wasted.

Roses - Charles Darwin, Koko Loko and Francis Meilland.

Japanese Anemones - besotted with these airy dancers in an arrangement.

Dahlias - KA’s Mocha Jo, Peaches ‘N Cream, Appleblossom, Platinum Blonde, Jessie G, Lark’s Ebbe, Floret Seedlings, Coralie, Take Off, Koko Puff and others.

Hope your week starts out well.

10/15/2021

Coralie from Hailey .merle.farm.

Coralie is also one of my top 5 favorite dahlias that I have grown this season. A perfect pink ombré 6” formal decorative dahlia with a pale buttercream interior in the petals. Coralie also has long darker stronger stems and enjoys a longer vase life. This is one special dahlia for me and will always be grown extensively in my field. I will be working to add more of this beauty next year.

I’m also going to be adding more Castle Drive - I think I have 3-4 plants of it but will wait until next season to get a true label on those.

Thanks Hailey my friend for these amazing tubers.

10/10/2021

2021 season 1 images from Choosing Calm Farms.

I’m so proud of what I’ve done with a lot of help this season. I’ve learned a lot and am still harvesting our blooms - 1000s of them per week.

10/09/2021

So many reasons why the Queen of the dahlias is known as the Café au lait. This café is from Kristine Karoline Sly] who has been a delight to work with this past season.

Café au laits start the season with blooms in the middle of the plant but if you start cutting deeper and deeper stems you’ll find yourself with a 24” stem soon enough. Karoline Karoline Sly] any other tricks you also find helpful here to develop longer stems?

I grow 125 or so of these informal decorative dinner plate beauties. It’s the first dahlia most people ask for and it’s often for a center focal point flower in a bridal bouquet. It’s blush and beige tones change over the season and within even the same plant as you can see from this photo. I’ve had some blooms be at least 10” wide and also a bouquet in themselves. Also note here that I’m cutting my dahlias with 75% open petals which is the ideal stage to cut the majority of dahlias at for prolonged vase life.

I also grow Café au lait rose and Café au lait royal.

Thanks Karoline for these fabulous dahlia tubers. 🤍

10/08/2021

Obsessed.

Love this dahlia tulipiere arrangement by April Bridgeman. April sure knows how to pull together a dramatic foyer and I’m here for all of it. Hopefully your Friday night will be as fun as it is in this home tonight.

It’s the final swan song of the dahlias for the next week and I’m seeing a pretty good weather forecast for the next week. If you are interested in creating extra big dramatic bouquets or creating your own from an abundant bucket of dahlias let me know.

Enjoy your Friday night!

10/08/2021

Sandia Brocade from Mara .

I’m in love with pretty much every anemone I grow (which is a fair number). This season my favorite anemones have been Platinum Blonde, Sandia Brocade and Aubergine. They have all bloomed prolifically and add everything unusual into an arrangement or bouquet.

Sandia Brocade is a larger 3” peachy toned anemone and almost looks like there are hundreds of little bird beaks pointing out of the centers.

10/07/2021

Late season dahlias are my favorite kind of dahlias. Swirls and curls and blown centers as pollinators are looking for their last hurrah.

It’s also the time where we have very few local flowers still growing and blooming strongly. These dahlias went into a beautiful sort of wild bouquet today - I like to think of each bouquet telling a story. What is this one telling you?

10/07/2021

Valley Rust Bucket from Hailey .merle.farm nails the fall color tones.

Some names of the dahlias I grow are personal names of the breeder but this one named Valley Rust Bucket makes me smile every time I see these deep rusty russet tones in the field as it’s so well named. This is a prolific bloomer with 3” perfectly shaped balls with super long stems that hover above the plant canopy making them a joy to cut.

Thank you Hailey for these amazing tubers!!

10/07/2021

This is my life these days. Surrounded by beauty during peak dahlia season. Carrying buckets, filling buckets with water, talking about cleaning my SUV but not doing it, covered in mud, talking about dahlias, cutting dahlias, managing any bugs, disbudding dahlias and deadheading them and stacking them into bucket after bucket. Driving very slowly with the 18 full buckets of dahlias I can take home which is roughly 1000-1500 blooms per cutting. Asking my friends to help me bring some home if they can ( that’s for you!!). Then sorting and processing them at home. Then delivering and the other side of it. I’ve been thankful to have had some extra help the past few weeks because otherwise I couldn’t do this by myself.

I sometimes forget to eat. But I never forget to breathe all the dahlias in every day. This is the best season of all (for me) - dahlia season. It’s ephemeral and so dreamy. It will only last another few short weeks until frost and then we are left with the dahlia dreams until next season. And the hard work of digging tubers, dividing and storing them safely starts.

10/06/2021

This is Camano Zoe from Jenny .

It is a smaller ball variety around 2-3” with the slightest pink tint. Cutting deeply on this plant helped the stems get considerably longer over the course of the season. I love the detail in her petals and color tones.

10/05/2021

Team burgundy and pink or team blush and peach? Where are you on the color spectrum? Do you like all colors or do you have definite favorites?

These stunning mostly dahlia bouquets went out today in Kate’s Classic Vase from which I find to be really usable and stylish. Love this hurricane candle from as well!

By the way for the record my favorite color is orange but I’m kind of a sucker for these deeper colors this fall too.

10/05/2021

We are celebrating Wednesdays tomorrow as we are not going to the farmer’s market this week.

I’ve got abundant dahlia bouquets for pick up on my front porch tomorrow morning after 8:30 am.

Payment via Venmo, Sqaure or exact change. I have a very limited number of bouquets available.

Pm me if you’d like me to hold one for you or comment here!

First come first with a bouquet. 💕

10/04/2021

Ms Amara from Kinga .

It’s a rainy day here in Chicago and I’m just about to head up to the farm to cut dahlias for early orders this week.

I cut my dahlias at my farm twice a week in peak season - typically Mondays and Thursdays to also coincide with orders and my schedule. I find that cutting twice a week helps with maximum dahlia growth and promotion of longer stronger stems. At this time in the season I cut my dahlias quite deeply with clean snips about 10-18” stems. Sometimes even 24” stems on varieties like Strawberry Ice or later season Café au laits. It was hard for me to cut as deep as I do know in my early years of dahlia growing but I’ve learned that dahlia plants typically prefer that approach and will be more prolific.

Enjoy the start of your week!

10/04/2021

An Appleblossom dahlia from Marryn taken yesterday evening.

I love Appleblossom and with today’s warmer and wet weather I had 5-6 more blooms open up from this one plant. Appleblossom is a beautiful productive blush collarette that is super hard to find so if you are fortunate to come across it for sale don’t delay!

10/03/2021

Who loves yellow? This is La Luna a dinner plate dahlia from .

It’s the color of a pale ghostly full moon on quiet night, long tall stems, and a graceful addition to any arrangement or bouquet.

10/02/2021

I know I’ve been promising my top dahlias that I’ve grown this year for a while now. But I’ll tease you with my number one choice for this year - Peaches ‘N Cream as taken by at my farm this week. Thank you Anne - this photo with the magic of dew still on it is beautiful and captures my love for this special dahlia.

This tuber came from . I have so many reasons to love Peaches ‘N Cream but it’s prolific, tall long stems, remarkable coloring and details and it’s perfect ball shape from the front to the back of it’s petals.

Quite a few lucky brides are carrying this beauty from our farm in their bridal bouquets tonight.

10/02/2021

Farmer’s market Saturday!! The rain has stopped (for a little bit).

I’m at the Winnetka Farmer’s Market this morning.

11/24/2020