The fabulous positivity of beautiful plants

I have been thinking about the amazing and positive can do attitude of beautiful plants. They strive to grow, whatever fate throws at them.

Take the example above. I ordered a beautiful new dahlia from Sarah Raven. This one is named Rosie Raven and is perfect for pollinators as well as being a fabulous colour.

I received my tuber, grew the dahlia in a pot in Favolosa, my greenhouse, and duly planted her out in the garden.

However, disaster struck when I was weeding nearby, and I managed to collide with the dahlia. Consequently, the two main parts of the dahlia broke off. Naturally, one part with the flower bud which I had been eagerly anticipating.

So, I raced to Favolosa, got out my hormone rooting powder, two pots, compost and water and planted the two parts in double quick time. The day was scorching hot which would not help the broken dahlia stems at all.

I knew I should remove most of the leaves to reduce water loss and the bud to allow the energy to be used to grow some roots. Something I always do when I am taking cuttings. The lower leaves were removed, leaving just a couple. However, I decided to leave the flower bud to see what happened.

A fabulous result, both broken stems from the dahlia rooted and the flower bud bloomed. See photo above. Even Letitia Lettuce, my lovely chicken was surprised!

I think this is one tough dahlia that wanted to grow, and she certainly has. And now I have two large bushy dahlia plants with plenty of beautiful blooms. Well done Rosie Raven, not only did you survive, you became two beautiful plants to wow in the garden.

The neglected pink rose

Next up is a lovely pink rose. I had forgotten I had this rose in a pot, so the poor thing had been ignored for a jolly long time.

Roses, especially those in pots, need a regular feed as all the nutrients they get are what we provide. They are hungry plants and will flower and grow better if given additional feed. I would normally feed them every couple of weeks from mid spring till late summer.

Roses need water and those in a pot need much more water than plants growing in the ground. Goodness knows how this poor rose survived during the heatwave last year when it would not have been watered at all.

Roses also need to be pruned each year. This rose is a shrub rose and needs minimal pruning but still, even a light pruning did not take place.

I saw a flash of pink flower in the back of a border, up against a hedge and lo and behold it was this lovely pink rose, flowering away merrily.

Now I have located this beautiful rose, the nurturing begins. Fortnightly feeds, watering, deadheading fading blooms and a light prune in February or March next year.

Clearly, a superb rose which wanted to survive, to grow and even to have some lovely flowers. I do not have a name for this rose so let’s call it “The amazing pinky”

Another great survivor and one of the beautiful plants

Next, we have the tale of a close encounter between a large dog and a sunflower. Truly beautiful plants to grow in the garden.

The sunflower was a lovely variety called ProCut Plum, growing to 1.5m tall and with a beautiful coffee cream and dusky plum colouring. One fabulous flower was blooming and waving around in the garden without a care in the world.

Along came Lulu, the 6 stone or 38.1 kg Golden Retriever, scampering about in the garden and having a jolly good time.

So, lovely scampering exuberant dog and beautiful, waving in the breeze sunflower met up rather suddenly and there was a snapping sound.

I headed over to inspect the damage. After quickly retying the sunflower back on to the stake and doing some muttering, I raced off for more gardening string and some tape. The sunflower was bandaged securely with the tape and secured in more places to the stake. Also, plenty of regular checks for ill effects of the close encounter of the dog kind.

Ultimately, another born survivor as the beautiful plant continued to flower and the pollinators visited in their droves.

And Lulu continued to cause havoc, scampering around the garden and swimming in the largest wildlife pond. She did leave the sunflowers alone though, so all was well in the world of the ProCut Plums.

The ace(r) recovery

My last contender for this post is the beautiful plant above. This acer or Japanese Maple, belongs to the Cosmos Queen, who you may have met in one of my earlier posts. The most recent is The awesome power of the garden where you will see how her love of gardening just grew and grew.

She suffered a life changing bereavement over four years ago when her beloved husband passed away and understandably had no interest in the three plants in pots in the garden. These pots were just placed somewhere out of the way and were forgotten.

We met, the gardening passion was ignited and one day she became reacquainted with these poor plants in pots. Out they came from behind a shed, and she checked for signs of life.

Firstly, she gave them a jolly good soaking, then she removed them from the pots. Next up, some fresh compost and replanting and fingers crossed.

Acers, especially those in pots, need to keep their roots moist but also have good drainage and aeration. In hot weather, such as the heatwave last year, they will have needed watering up to twice a day.

Due to her daily care and nurturing, all three plants started to recover. They are now thriving and bringing yet more welcome colour and texture to a garden now brimming with colourful flowers and beautiful plants.

Several varieties of acer can be planted in pots and they are easy to grow, remarkable adaptable and clearly cope with little maintenance. They would be suitable to have in a pot on a balcony or courtyard too. Additionally, giving plenty of interest as the spectacular leaf colours change through the seasons.

The positivity of beautiful plants

I think that each of these beautiful plants shows us that with some positivity, so much is possible.

The beautiful dahlia Rosie Raven has now become two plants, bringing beautiful colour to my garden and helping the pollinators too.

Likewise, the pretty rose, Amazing Pinky, is giving a beautiful display of blooms and is back out on centre stage in my garden.

The sunflower ProCut Plum bloomed for several weeks, bringing colour and benefitting the bees, butterflies and hoverflies. Sunflowers have such smiley happy faces so who could not smile back at the sight of these magnificent blooms.

And the lovely acer, bringing beautiful colour and texture to a part of the garden which needed a boost for the Cosmos Queen. This lovely acer is growing so well, the plant will be repotted into a larger pot soon.

In each of these stories, the beautiful plants survived and thrived. We helped them, and what a reward we received.

Gardening truly is so positive and rewarding and such a boost to our wellbeing. See below for some more gardening for wellbeing stories.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/health-and-wellbeing

More stories and a great book

And click below for some more of my heartwarming gardening for wellbeing stories and a post on how gardening can help with anxiety.

A powerful gardening for wellbeing story

Greatest benefits of becoming a gardener

The amazing benefits of gardening

The Cosmos Queen’s beautiful dahlias

Garden to empower, out the anxiety

One of the books I have on gardening and wellbeing, which I can highly recommend is Gardening for Mind, Body and Soul by Annie Burdick. See link below if you are interested.

https://amzn.to/3r3Uh2j

This blog is a participant in Amazon’s Associate’s Program. If you click on the link above, and make a purchase I may receive a commission, at no additional cost to you.

So, to finish, let us all take a leaf out of these plants book, as they say, and follow their example. With some positivity, and a bit of nature and nurture, think what we could all achieve. And my final words for this post………

Take care everyone. We can all blossom, like these beautiful plants. I am off outside now to do some gardening with my lovely chickens.

See you next time with another post on dahlias. No surprise there then!

And here are the next dahlia posts if you would like to take a look

Wonderful dahlias, stunning beauty and buzzing bees

10 beautiful dahlia flowers for pollinators

10 zingy dahlias for a truly beautiful garden

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