3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
OK, that is beautiful. I have to have a remeinder on how to do this. I cut the flowers and than put them in very hot water with the flower saver. Than, do I just leave them there or transfer them to another pot with cool water and more saver solution.?
Russ, you could be right about the first one. The size sounds about right. The second one has flowers at least 5 inches in diameter and is about 7 feet tall. I'm not sure where my friend got it originally, maybe in a bag at a nursery (rather than from a specialty mail order). The color is a STRONG dark, bright purple. It's very different than my usual choice of color. By the way, I noticed on another thread you gave the dimensions of Firepot as 3". I just measured mine and it's 6". I don't know why that would be but it's so unique looking it has to be the right plant. I didn't do anything speicial to it. I confess I didn't even fertalize my dahlias this year. Firepot was fully open by mid August which was about a month later than the others.
Vikingcraftsman, It is interesting about the color preference. I don't know about ethnic but astrology seems to play a part. My favourite color in general is yellow. Nearly all Pisces I've known actively hate yellow - blue is their choice. Pisces is water. My colors are warm, reds (true tomato reds not wine reds), orange, yellow, gold etc. I'm an Aries by the way - Fire - it makes sense at least to me.
My etnic refeence was because it seems a lot of Italian girls like purple and lavender. They seem to wear dresses in those colors. The Spanish girls seem to like reds and yellows. The doors to there houses and the triming seems to be in that color. But like all of life nothing works out that neat. The two sisters who live across the street one loves the reds and yellows the other one loves the lavenders. And the Italian lady next door has a daughter who painted her room red and yellow. So my being able to know what a woman would like is still up in the air.
Oh the envy.... I got Formby Kaitlyn in a trade this year, but alas no eyes. No eyes, no plant.
Your photo of Rev. P Holien is just stunning. I think it's the closest to capturing the velvet quality of a dahlia's petals that I've ever seen online, linht, and that is a lot of viewing! Beautiful.
Xenon is lovely as well. Light and airy, bright and fiesty!
Annabeth, I like orange (and red and yellow) too. I'd say to persist with the Firepot. I got one this year with a collection of small, mostly cactus tubers. I really like this one. It was the latest to open of the whole collection (all planted in the same conditions at the same time). Here are some pictures. The first one really glows because of the way the light was.
I also got Swan's Olympic Flame this year but it hasn't bloomed at all. That's probably because it got stepped on by a bear.
I'm going to be posting some pictures of other dahlias from this year on the Discussion side of this forum - or - is it better if I put them on the gallery? What is the preference here. I'm visiting from the Hosta Forum. McTavish
I guess my plants aren't paying attention. This collection was called small or short or something. Mary Jo and Bitsy are about the same height, both in the front of this planting area. I was surprised that Park Princess was included as short. I'd had this one in the past and really liked it. It was always pretty tall for me. Of this group, Park Princess, All Triumph and Firepot are the tallest.
Sadie_flowerlady,
I can't speak to whether cuttings will keep a variety from dieing out, a cutting is a clone of the original plant, but if its taken from a new tuber each year (which they typically are) then each year the variety has the possibility of changing. Of course you stand a better chance if you take a cutting from a tuber that produced particularly well.
This year all of my Dahlias were grown from cuttings. I took >400 cuttings and grew >150 here in my gardens. I rooted my cuttings most successfully in 4" pots of Miracle Grow Seed Start with "Rootz" hormone. The cuttings were taken from tuber sprouts, when the sprout got 3 sets of leaves or more, or was >4" tall. That meant I was taking cuttings on average 42 days after I took the tuber out of storage.
I kept my pots in trays under lights with ~1" of water. While I had some losses, I got more cuttings than I needed.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Russ
Here is a link that might be useful: My Dahlia garden pictures
yes, Jroot. we are a thrifty (miserly) breed aren't we? :-))
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I prefer to call it FRUGAL: (from someone with a very Scottish maiden name)
Whereas my husband is so wasteful it makes my blood boil sometimes. NOT frugal.