first flowers

Finally with a couple of days of sun under our belts, they’re all putting on their party dresses – zinnias, cosmos, dahlias, bachelor buttons. Just a handful here or there, enough to make a few bouquets. But I love how in the beginning, every one seems the sweetest thing.

I got particularly into stalking the arrival of the first dahlia. I’ve never grown them before, and hauling the heavy tubers out of the basement and burying them in cold trenches in the damp gray spring is not my fondest memory.

But I do think they’re spectacular. There’s nothing quite like a dahlia.