On Sunday 3rd November, 7 of us met in the Biddulph carpark ready to tidy up the Dahlia beds, preparing for tulip bulbs to be planted.
We were surprised to see the Dahlias looking so good, it’s been a mild October.
Holly and Jack had it all well organised, they had already been through the plants and checked that they matched the labels, some were diseased so were left unlabelled and to be thrown away. Some were labelled “unknown” as they were pretty but the variety couldn’t be identified, they will be planted in one of the other beds for interest next year. I couldn’t help thinking of Donald Rumsfeld and his speech about “ known unknowns”, and “unknown unknowns”.
We spent the day chopping off the vegetation, leaving enough to keep the label in place. Pulling up the Dahlia corms and loading them into labelled boxes, ready for cleaning. Working at Biddulph has its fun side (lots of people walking past to say hello) and it’s challenges (the only access to the dahlia walk is via steps so all the waste and Dahlia corms have to be carried in baskets to the vehicle)
I didn’t count how many loads of compost we walked to the vehicle but I think the back of the little truck was emptied about 10 times. We must have packed up 60 different varieties of Dahlia. By the end I was tired but happy, we almost got the whole walk done, just one bed left at the end.
Thanks to the Biddulph team for looking after us so well, and good luck washing down all those corms without losing the labels.
