3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias

go to the Colorado Dahlia Society site to find the nearest dahlia club tuber sale. There's a Portland club & a Vancouver, WA club. Hurry as some clubs have already started sales. You can get good dahlias- not the junk you get in the bags at stores-- for a really reasonable price.
You could even go to the meetings, learn how to grow dahlias well &, come wedding time, if you need extras, there's always great dahlia folk in the clubs that are willing to give blooms away at the drop of a hat!
Some of the B & BB sized dahlias (BB= 4-6" diameter blooms, B= 6-8" diameter blooms) will have upwards of at least 10-20 blooms on a plant at the same time. The miniatures (up to 4" diameter blooms) will have even more. You will need to keep them dead-headed to keep them blooming until the wedding but the timing is great for the PNW!!
I have done a couple of weddings where the bride & her girls just carried ONE huge dahlia as their bouquet & the centerpieces were also one huge dahlia-- easy to do & not stressful on the wedding day!

I encourage you to go ahead and plant your dahlias just for the sheer fun of them! And be sure to stake them or you could have a tumbled mess by Sept with no straight stems. Swan ISland Dahlias is only about 1/2 an hour south of you, and they so sell cut dahlias. The week before the wedding I would take a look at what I have and then put in an order for what ever else you might need. They are also an excellent source of Tubers but you would have to hurry because they stop selling April 1 I beleive. Get your tubers now and then prepare your beds. I start all of my new tubers in gallon pots anyhow and do not plant them untill they are 12-18" tall. THat helps them to survive insect damage when they first emerge.

I have found Swan Island tubers to be the hardiest in all those bought in the Pacific Northwest. WHen I count up survivors theres are the ones I keep from year to year.

And be sure and go to their festival this fall. I went right after my son's Portland wedding last August and was totally blissed out by their displays.

By the way, the dahlias help up much better for table decorations then the roses did! I suggest planting some lacy filler flowers in your field that would complement the dahlias...ammi visnaga, ammi majus, Larkspur, snapdragons, etc.

the old noodles were plastic & are going to be around for a million years-- the newer ones are made of cornstarch & go away when wet. So-- if you have old ones you might be OK-- newer ones-- your soil will be at the bottom of the pot after the first watering. Give them a try- put some in a container & pour water on them. If they're still there holding their shape the next day they're probably the old ones.

I use just about anything to lighten up my containers---including crushed diet coke cans. That said, if you are not thinking of lightening but of drainage, the container forum has a lot to say on that issue---you might want to take a peek.

Regards,

Luc

Thanks Annie!

the Colorado Dahlia Society has a Big List of thousands of dahlias & the National Dahlia Society in England has thousands as well

Ryan-- I think you're refering to the plant-growing wedges rather than the big oasis that florists use. They are of different density from the florist's kind, are already cut into little wedges, have a hole in them for the cutting-- the roots will grow right out through them just fine. They also contain a bit of stuff to prevent fungus & to feed the cutting. I would never use regular oasis for cuttings- it's far too dense.
Soak the wedges well before using, do your cutting- be sure to have a leaf-node to put down in the hole in the oasis or you won't get tubers from the plant. Keep the wedges in the flat/tray made just for that purpose-- or-- one of our members gets really little plastic cups---- but it has to have a hole put in the bottom because, yes, you do have to keep the oasis wet at all times-- about a half inch of water in the bottom of the flat or container that you put the cups in.

Thanks for the advice, I have actually began taking cuttings already and that is pretty much what I have been doing. I just wasn't sure if it was right. This is my first try at Dahlia cuttings.
Thanks again
Ryan

Thank you Kerianne! I guess since i fear those bugs more than any other bug in our area, i envisioned swarms of them! Ill keep my tubers then, and will probably buy more!

You can use Sluggo-Plus to do them in- make sure it is damp or they won't eat it. Just sprinkle it sparcely around the garden & wet it down once in awhile with the hose. It's not cheap but you don't need much to get them. The bonus is it gets the slugs, too & is classed as Organic-- & it works!!!
Earwigs love dahlias- esp. the white & yellow ones & can turn your blooms into lace overnight. I used to have a garden with 75 waterlily-form dahlias in it- loved them. One year I didn't get a single bloom that wasn't ruined off of that garden! Gahhhh!!!! I hate earwigs, too!!!

There's no cure- you've been bitten by the dahlia-addict bug & are doomed for life! We started with 1 in 1965 & now grow 6,500+ plants every year!...and, yes, the husband digs them up, cuts them up, stores them over the winter & plants again in the spring! (I won't go into the dahlia-hybridizing bug that hits about 10 years after the dahlia-addict bug-- but it's even more potent than the dahlia-addict one!) :)

Thanks for confirming the hopelessness of this addiction!! LOL

Plantlady2008, you should make some YouTube videos of hubby cutting them for winter storage. There are a few bad quality vids on there, but nothing of good quality. I didn't cut last year's up, I'll wait to see where the new shoots are and then cut. Do you have any pics of your garden with all those 6,500 plants!!!???? That musts be a sight to behold.

I was sorry to see quite a few of the dinnerplate sized tubers from Costco are dried up, and wrinkled with no shoots. Oh well, the good thing is that Costco will give you your money back.

Come on, Spring - I want to get these planted in the garden! LOL

I will try to save the tubers of both of them.. lets see what happens in the next season if they survived the 110 Fahrenheit of our summers..

I will try to save the tubers of both of them.. lets see what happens in the next season if they survived the 110 Fahrenheit of our summers..

Linlily....you will get both, tubers and lots of flowers this year...a lot depends of your green thumb and mother nature as far as how many but you will get both....you have the right idea, start the seeds and pot them up, then slowly introduce them out doors....start the process in early April so you can have the new plants ready to go into the ground after the last frost, usually around May 1st., the AA or Dinner plates will produce fewer flowers then your smaller types.... teddahlia is right...depending on the conditions around where the seeds were collected, you could get a wide assortment of different size and types of dahlis...kind of like Easter but once your plants are up they will be just as large as the ones from tubers, flower just as nicely and should have nice tubers

Thank you teddahlia and groall for your input. Growing dahlias from seeds sounds like it could be a lot of fun. I've grown daylilies from seed before, but dislike doing it because it usually takes 2 to 3 years to see any flowers from them. I'm more impatient than that!

Linda