J for Jodi's Favorites

I have so many favorites but many of them I can trace back to my backyard growing up. For living in town it was a large backyard, shared by my family and my grandparents. Although my dad is the main gardener now (with assistance from my son and brother), when I was growing up it was my dziadzu (grandfather).

When my dziadzu married by grandmother (everyone just called her Mom) he brought an azalea from his mother's garden -- an orange azalea. I don't have one in my garden but the orange azalea is still there and is one of my favorites. Also, reflecting my love of the color purple is my love of Johnny Jump ups and lilacs(love the smell). They both have a place in my garden as well as grape hyacinths which are 100x better than regular hyacinths in my opinion.

But my obsession is dahlias! I first noticed dahlias when someone was selling cut flowers at a fall festival in the college town of my oldest daughter. They were huge bursts of color that no one could resist. These were around 8 inches across! But they come in all sizes, colors (well, no blue), variations - I could plant a new type every year from now until the end of time. I think that's part of the appeal, deciding what new type to add to my garden each year.

It wasn't until a few years after that first sighting that I splurged on a dahlia tuber pack at my

local home improvement big box store. Then I was ordering them online, reading books about them, learning to overwinter tubers, rigging up fencing to support the bigger varieties.

As I write this two milk carton sit in an unheated storage space filled to the top with dahlia tubers (ok, there may be a few cannas in there). Each tuber is lovingly wrapped in saran wrap or newspaper and labelled. Next month will be dahlia planting month. That alone tells you how much I love them. Although I pride myself as a survival-of-the-fittest gardener, each year I dig up two dozen tubers in the fall, carefully divide them, then store them until I can replant them in the spring. But it's worth it.

Do you have any must have favorites for your garden?