Dahlia Season at the Coast
August Bloomday did not come to fruition for me-3 days in a row of temperatures north of 105 even crisped up the zonal Geraniums. A rude awakening after spending a few days at a quiet inn on the north coast where temps stayed in the pleasant mid-60's . Now that it's not 105 anymore I could actually go outside and trim up the torched plants however now we have the smoke, the ash, the grey and gold horizons all around. Fires are in my county and all counties adjacent so the breeze that blows the smoke away from one direction blows it in from another. My Dahlias did not fare well in the c-note temps. And prior to the the heat wave they have been beset with leaf miners that have made a hot mess of their foliage. I have been spending a fair amount of time researching options for control for next year-at this point in the summer the damage is done and I just have to live with the unsightly result. One bit of advice was to pick off and destroy any leaves as soon as they start t