Late Discoveries

Late Discoveries
            I like flowers as much as the next person. I even manage to plant porch flower boxes every year that people stop their cars or pause their walks to ask about. Having said that, I am not an expert on any particular type of flower, and my garden plants are shamefully neglected.
            I appreciate the intense fascination people have for particular flowers: orchid lovers devoted to their rare treasures, people who care for their roses like children.
            I heard people wax poetic about dahlias for decades, but it wasn’t until I lived in San Francisco that I came to know what dahlias are.
            A dahlia afficionado in our neighborhood cultivates a large patch of beautiful dahlias each year. My sons and I would walk over to see them in bloom. Dazzled by the wide variety, we still don’t know what traits make a dahlia a dahlia.
            Recently, we visited the Dahlia Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park which is in an easily accessed location from many of our walks. How did we overlook it for so many years?
            What an eye opener. Underwater sea anemone reborn as plants? Pom-poms that have transformed into flowers? The variety of shapes and colors is astounding.
            What a joy to “discover” something amazing that eluded our view for years. If we look more closely nearby, we may find something to add a fresh burst of color to our outlook. Keep putting one foot forward!
            This week’s Hike Notes, Dahlia Garden-Golden Gate Park, takes readers on a visit to the Dahlia Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, which features over 700 varieties of stunning dahlias.
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New this week:
Hike Notes 208: Dahlia Garden-Golden Gate Park