It was on Instagram that I first found Georgianna’s Paris photography. It had such a romantic feel and when I looked into every photograph, I longed to step into each light-filled scene and spend a week or two there. Her style is “branded” and I could pick her photographs out of my feed lineup without enlarging the photographs to verify it.

Naomi Slade is a book author and writes for various gardening publications. In her book Dahlias, Beautiful Varieties for Home and Garden, she states dahlias “are flowers with pizazz and purpose, oozing personality and character.” As I read this I knew I would like her right off because of her ability to describe dahlias.

When the book arrived I eagerly opened it and flipped through the bright-full-page photographs, like a kid looking for a hidden stick of gum, and thought it appeared to be a coffee-table book…until I began to read the type on the opposite pages. I devoured it.

Naomi is a storyteller and she tells a little history of each flower photographed in the book. Did you know the velvety-burgundy Rip City Dahlia was named after Portland, Oregon and the trailblazers? Naomi fills us in on all the blanks about each dahlia that I did not know and I have a better understanding of each, after she introduces me again.

Ball dahlias are such perfectly formed patterns and Naomi explains it’s “mathmatical pedigree” as the Fibonacci sequence and details the cell division.

There is also thirteen pages of helpful information about growing and caring for Dahlias. She includes a small section on growing for shows and shares some tricks of the trade. One trick is to put petroleum jelly on the stems of your flower stem to prevent earwigs from reaching the flower petals.

If you were on the bench about purchasing this book, I recommend it. It’s lovely reading and you can admire the photos for many months, now and later, when your dahlias have been put to bed for the dull-colored-winter months.

Until tomorrow…Continue to educate and invest in yourself.