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My grandmother loved her dahlias. Her garden was gorgeous, for the vegetables and berries, but also flowers, tended to with so much skill, joy and love up until her last summer in life. And I think the dahlias were her favorites in the flower beds – digging up the roots every autumn, keeping them snug and above freezing in pots filling the entire glass verandah over winter and then planting them again in spring. Whenever mom and I were headed to visit grandpa’s grave, she would give us a generous bouquet of white and deep purple dahlias to decorate it with. In her last ten years, she had trouble walking long distances and couldn’t get to the grave very often, but I think she felt like she was there, at the grave, in spirit through the dahlias that she had so lovingly tended to.
To make a long story short, during the last couple of years of botanic garden visits I have felt particularly drawn to the dahlias. I think there might be a very sentimental reason for it.
Photo: Every shade of petals in the incredible dahlia garden in Jardin botanique du Parc de la Tête d’Or, Lyon, France, October 2018. Posted on Instagram October 4, 2020.
Katja Malmborg 