Drowsy dahlias

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Hello all,

Each seasonal change has its own personality. For most life besides modern humans, autumn is one of preserving resources, preparing for days with less warmth and light, and practicing various forms of resting and sleeping in preparation for a future rejuvenation. For the past two days I have dug up and boxed my dahlias so they can survive a winter considered harsh and killing for these lovely tropical flowers whose ancestors never evolved to accommodate such weather. Just a few days ago the blog featured some pictures of my unsuspecting plants but two mild frosts withered and blackened the dahlia leaves and stalks and brought the proud flowers to the ground. Pictured is one of the three boxes of dahlia tubers partially filled. I carefully spade under a tuber clump, pull the whole clump up by the stalks that are then cut off. I remove the clods of earth and examine each clump. Some individual tubers have succumbed to attacks by worms or beetle larva and any of these pests must be removed along with unhealthy tubers. I do not want to provide a winter home and feast for any free loaders. The tubers are gently placed on a bed of peat moss (as pictured) and finally covered with more moss. The covered boxes spend the winter in the garage where the temperatures are more moderate than outside.

Gathering the dahlia tubers provided a lovely time for meditation and for thinking about the evolution of plant life. The first plants appeared hundreds of millions years ago and lived in a tropical environment where winter never imposed itself. Over time, some plant life gradually evolved to live in temperate zones and had to contend with less ideal conditions in which some form of dormancy was necessary for survival. A big revolution came with the appearance of deciduous plants that shed their leaves to contend with winter conditions. Some plants like the forsythia need a couple of hard frosts to set their growth for the spring. This prevents a premature flowering which could be induced my some mild Indian summer days. So, as I tucked in the last of the dahlia tubers I thought of how human preferences and interventions have greatly altered the “natural” boundaries of plant life.

Bernice and I met when we were 14 on December 17, 1947 (it is Bernice who remembers the date) but I was just days from my 15^th birthday on December 25. The details of that grand meeting will have to await another telling but, as we realized later, we may have met a year earlier. The reason that I am writing of this is that Bernice mentioned in the prior blog that I have always enjoyed writing and now that I have acquired the blog bug I am reluctant to give up the pleasure. In the spring of 1946 I was in 8^th grade and Bernice was in 7^th grade, both in Buffalo schools. There was an Americanism contest held throughout all Buffalo grammar and high schools with the top prizes being an overnight trip to Washington, DC. I wrote on James Madison, the fourth US president and one of the influential founding fathers. Bernice wrote something more general. I won for my school and for my district but not citywide for all 8^th grades. Bernice won all the way (she has always been a better writer) and went to Washington. There is 13-year-old Bernice, third from the left with the great hair, along with other winners and chaperones in front of Buffalo’s Hotel Statler and about to embark for Washington. This picture appeared in the Buffalo Evening News.

Good night everyone,

Merwin