April 30, 2025.

April 2025 has been an exceptionally dry and warm month…always a reminder that planting timelines are flexible.  I remember in 2019 I planted my sweet peas on February 14, just like my aunt.  This year, seeds were sowed outside in early April…unintentionally perhaps as the days quickly ticked away but later than my usual planting time on Valentine’s Day.  My grandpa and my folks plant potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day: I finally did this year! Do you have a favorite recipe to cook potatoes? Send our way…Kat@ConsolidatedPlants.com.

Over 80 dahlia tubers are planted.  Added five new ones from Triple Wren and a few from my folks…rightly named Emory Paul and Maui.  I am hoping for some big dinner plate dahlias this year.  

Our garage (particularly Cameron’s parking spot) is littered with boxes of sawdust and tubers I divided. I am waiting to see their little sprouts grow, ensuring I divided them correctly.  Sometimes I lose a few smaller tubers in the process of dividing the really big ones; always a learning process for me.  

Now the real debate…do I find space to plant my extra tubers, or unload the lot knowing fall of 2025 is already shaping up to be heavy with the 80+ tubers planted?  Did you know one tuber can turn into ohhh 5 to 20 tubers? Hmm that’s some fun math….

I finally harvested a few blooms from my lilac, Yankee Doodle!  It was planted spring of 2021…on top of landscape fabric.  Sigh.  I recognized my error in after a few years of no blooms and little growth.  The last six years have included slowly removing the landscape fabric around our property.  A task, like slapping chalkboard erasers together, that must be done to provide better soil, more air and nutrients to allow the roots to grow.  With that landscape fabric removal, that bed has been transformed to include: dahlias, crocosmias, 2 lilacs, a potato (testing it out), asparagus, white and dark purple calla lilies, sweet peas, daffodils, a few different irises, sunflowers and more to come because I clearly see empty space that needs to be filled.  

Lilacs are a wonderful spring bloom, although quick and fleeting.  I have four lilacs now…three are pushing out blooms (2 purple, 1 white!) while the last is just leaves at the moment.  I also learned lilacs can be propagated! Better believe I have several starts growing now…fingers crossed they take!