The dahlias are finally doing that thing - that completely unreasonable, how-can-one-flower-possibly-have-that-many-petals thing - in colors we couldn't have thought up if we'd been (over) paid to try. Meanwhile the sunflowers are growing taller by the minute and are the dictionary definition of cheerful. They’re apparently the only ones who haven't noticed the light has already started changing and the days are, unlike the sunflowers, getting shorter. Every year we tell ourselves we won't lose our minds over it.
Every year we lose our minds over it.
And it's happening everywhere at once. In your garden, your neighbor's garden (you know - the one that's somehow always doing better than yours), and in the amazing dahlia farms we buy from, too. Where the rows stretch further than our phone cameras can ever do justice to. Our growers wait all year for these last weeks of summer - where everything, everywhere, is blooming all at once, before the cold starts to creep in. Nobody - and especially no flower - plays it cool in August.
Here's the part that gets us, though. The best flowers of the whole year show up at the exact moment you start to feel summer slipping away. When the evenings start arriving earlier, the kiddos are going back to school (thank goodness!), and that first chilly morning comes and says you know what's coming. We pretend to be surprised but, just as we are every year, we’re right on schedule.
Our best and last of summer favorites are chock full of dahlias, sunflowers, and all the warm colors of this little in-between season - and every stem is grown right here in the U.S. We'd love to tell you we designed these bouquets with tremendous restraint. But do we ever? It's one of our favorite flower months of the year and we like to put everything we’ve got out there.
The (not so) short story? This is a great week to send flowers to someone. The friend you keep meaning to call. Your mom, for no reason. The person who had a hard summer. And if you send them to yourself, just know several of us did exactly that last week, so you're in excellent company.
I guess the point is that late summer doesn't stay and neither do these. So enjoy them while they last!
