I confess before meeting Philippa Stewart it had never crossed my mind that you could dry dahlia flowers. Yet when I visited her in Cheshire earlier this year and saw buckets of dried dahlias with their vibrant colours I realised you definitely can dry these wonderful flowers. As Philippa explains in the podcast, being a flower farmer asked to produce 200 white dahlias for a wedding next Saturday is very stressful. You can’t control the weather. But ask her if she has dried dahlias - not a problem.

So do listen on if you want tips on drying the flowers and also on harvesting the seeds so you too can try growing from seed next year. And have a look at the episode page too. If you happen to live near Twickenham in London, do check out the Strawberry Hill Flower Festival which Claire Leighton, a floral designer talks about in this episode. 30 British florists will be designing and building floral installations in the rooms and along the hallways and staircases of this little gothic villa which belonged to Horace Walpole. I am heading there next Thursday, hoping to record an interview with co-founders Claire and Janne Ford. Take a look at the programme because there are also talks and demonstrations. This is about sustainable floristry so at the end, the only thing left will be a compost heap!

I hope you enjoy this episode, its great to be able to publish it because I began recording it back in April and that seems a very long time ago. When we went out to look at Philippa’s dahlia field it was of course empty, this week she sent me pictures of it transformed into a riot of colour and I remembered her saying how she loves to go out every morning to look at the new blooms, describing it as: “Christmas every day”.

Sadly you very rarely see dahlias being sold as cut flowers around here. I am guessing it is because as Philippa explains, they need to be kept in water which makes them hard to transport. However luckily my sister has lots of them so when I go to visit her, I come back with armfuls of flowers. I have tended the seeds that Philippa gave me but as yet no sign of blooms. She reassures me that there is still time. Maybe this year I will just be harvesting some tubers to grow next Spring.

It is strange how long a story can take from the initial conversation to a fully grown podcast episode. One thing I have realised as I finished off this episode is that there are advantages to putting it out just as gardeners are talking about and sharing photos of dahlias and thinking which ones to grow next year. So one of the questions I ponder as I start to plan for 2025 and series 3 is can I find some more stories that I can match to the seasons. I have sent off five emails this afternoon in pursuit of stories I have come across recently and thought might make for series 3. As ever all ideas are welcome from readers and listeners.

Finally I love that I have plant story conversations with strangers but that we are united by a plant - yesterday it was a Monkey Puzzle chat. The young woman I was chatting to knew the tree very well. When she was little her mum told her that if she saw one Monkey Puzzle tree, she should hold her breath till she saw a second. This could be a little stressful as she couldn’t always find a second! Meanwhile David Gedye has recently been in Scotland where he visited what is reputedly the oldest Monkey Puzzle tree in the UK - but as ever the story isn’t quite so clear cut. I am immersing myself in the Monkey Puzzle world again as I am due to be on a Radio 2 setting some quiz questions! Its at 12.30am on Friday 13th September so I don’t expect anyone to stay up but I’ll let you know how it goes!

Have a lovely weekend.

Sally