outside intervention

I own a determined and desperate dahlia. I have taken to crouching down beside it in sympathy much as one would stop to offer help to an accident victim, or visit someone during a long and tedious convalesce.
It should be two feet tall by now.
It should be swaying under a load of vibrant late summer splendor.
Instead, it has been locked in a season long battle; its mortal foe, a slug with the personality of Jabba the Hutt. Each tender green blade that emerged from the soil was ruthlessly consumed.
Week after week, a tragedy unfolded.
I have intercepted and dispatched minor slugs, but more senior ones remain uncaught, their hiding place undetected.
Today a solemn bell tolls in my garden. My dahlia is running out of time.
It would have to grow with the speed of time lapse photography to blossom before the winds of autumn turn to frost and lay the dahlias low
Next year I'll pot up my weary dahlias. Endangered species need that kind of outside intervention.