POW!
I tend to hyperbolize, and I’m fickle, but this is probably the best flower from the garden yet. It’s a dahlia called ‘Spiderwoman’ that I planted in spring.
The flower quite closely resembles its namesake, except for the massive bosom.
This has been my first year growing dahlias, and although only about half of what I planted produced blooms, those that did flower have been amazing!
Here’s the Spiderwoman dahlia in a vase with a large yellow ‘Kennermerland’ dahlia, another successful plant, which has produced ten enormous blooms so far.
The vase also contains a few flowers from the florist (the white chrysanthemums and gypsophila) and some more from the garden (the purple verbena). Most of the foliage – the seedheads and box stems – was grown nearby by my friendly local florist.
The fern stems are from a ‘parlour palm’ potted plant that I’ve kept since around 2007. I rescued it from an office, where it was the weeniest, dead-est looking little plant, and it’s been one of my plant pals ever since.
The sticky-out bits (that’s a botanical term 😉 on the left of the plant, are flower stalks, and in a few weeks it should produce tiny yellow flowers. The Royal Horticultural Society, describes these as ‘insignificant’ flowers, which in my view is overly judgemental. Stick to the facts RHS!
I’ll share this picture with Cathy and the gang at Rambling in the Garden ‘in a vase on monday’ and I’ve got a few more of these spiderwoman blooms to come, which is super exciting.
Next year, I’ll plant more dahlias. And I’ll stake them better (mine are all a bit wonky, tbh). And I’ll give the young plants more protection from slugs. All these lessons learned will hopefully give me a better chance to grow more of these awesome flowers next year, and perhaps I’ll sell a few in bouquets at FromeBlooms.com, my online flower shop.
As always, I hope that your garden plants and plans are coming along nicely, and I’d welcome your comments.
Jen x
Doing The Plan 
‘Spiderwoman’ is pretty amazing. Nicely done!
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An impressive and gorgeous dahlia! Thanks for the morning giggle (sticky-out bits.) I love learning new botanical terms.
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Brilliant name for this dahlia – and I do hope the real Spiderwoman has a good sports bra with all that leaping about she does… 🙂 Your other dahlias look pretty good too and let’s encourage each other on the staking next year! They are such good value plants and the more you grw them the more tubers you will want, as I have found. I shall be lifting mine – will you? And ‘sticky out bits’ is a perfectly acceptable term that we all understand, so let’s stick with that, shall we?
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She’s a stunner, aptly named. I have to plant my dahlias surrounded by copper flashing to prevent slugs early on. Once they grow it is hard to keep slugs from gaining entrance through drooping foliage, but by then earwigs and Jap.beetles are munching as well (sigh). Tomato cages staked heavily have proven quite successful. Looking forward to seeing next year’s bounty!
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That Dahlia is indeed awesome. The arrangement, the vase, and the photo itself are all just right. Well done!
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It is an amazing flower and really does have an apt name! I’d love to grow dahlias again, but like Eliza mentioned above, the battle with slugs and earwigs is disheartening!
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Thanks for the lovely feedback everyone! I’m sorry to hear about the slug and earwig attacks and hope we all have a good crop of awesome flowers next summer 👍😊🌺👏
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Just getting to know your site and blog posts. Lovely! I’ll be a regular reader here.
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