3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
We have had a fair bit of rain here too. Yesterday was a decent day so I fertilized again. I try to fertilize my brugmansias every week with a higher middle number fertilizer, and yesterday the dahlias got it too. I stop fertilizing by the middle of August, as I do not want to encourage growth, but rather let them settle down and clear out their system from the "performance enhancers".
They look wonderful. I used the wood tags with a marker and the names of the tubers washed off. I have no idea what I have. Will up load some later for ID. We have just had days of heavy rain with flooding etc. The soil is like soup. I wonder if I should fertilize again?
I have both Iceberg and Snowbound this year, but neither are near budding yet. Iceberg is supposed to have pinkish tips to its pettles, so I'm guessing what you have open there is Snowbound. Iceberg is 12" diameter, Snowbound 9". Iceberg is 36" tall, Snowbound is 48".
Short stems can be a problem. I had that problem last year with my Purple Taiheijo (which is sister to Iceberg btw.)
You can disbranch, or if you have buds above the blooming flowers (which you appear to) simply go ahead and remove the bloomed flowers for your vase.
It can take a week or more for a bloom to fully open, especially the AAs. I recently had a 4" bloom that took >2 weeks to open fully.
I don't have a lot of cutting experience for vases, but I cut them when they look nice...who cares if that's 50% open or 100%.
Mine did not continue to open after I cut them. YMMV.
Congrats on growing such beautiful Dahlias!
Cheers,
Russ
Here is a link that might be useful: Learning: Controlling Plant Growth
Plantlady2008,
How do you keep the Emory Paul(EP) from wilting? I have an EP also, but it is not as huge as yours. Mine is in a pot and this year flowered in early June. If you ever introduce your seedling 0601 I would like to obtain one.
I also have a Big Wow which flowered more early this year. I don't have pictures because I don't know how to download from my cellphone, lol.
fleur guy-- 6 up or 10 up or however-up means that's the number of blooms you allow on a plant for the whole season. In England the hard-core growers keep the AA's- or Giants as they're known over there to 4-up... 4 blooms per plant per year. They grow upwards of a hundred of a single cultivar so they can get blooms enough for a show. We have found that with some of our giants we can grow them 10 or so up & still have a giant bloom, but some of the older cultivars don't reach size unless you force them to by disbudding & debranching.
Sturgeonguy- that Emory Paul pict. was taken about 13 years ago. The tuber was just planted in the garden in full sun. It had to have been about the middle of Sept. when we got the bloom as we entered it in the Whatcom Dahlia Society show which is pretty much always the 2nd weekend in Sept. It wasn't started indoors or anything like that-- we didn't even have a greenhouse at that time. The problem we had with Emory Paul was that it got later & later in the season before we got a bloom or 2 off of it & it's a mule-- can't get seed from it at all -- so we stopped growing it when we got really serious about hybridizing dahlias. Wish it had co-operated more as it would have been great it get some of that size into our breeding program!
As for getting into our program-- you have to be an AA sized dahlia >:) We grow all our own for 5 years before introducing them-- with one other friend of 35 years that we let grow for the last year or so before introducing just to see what they will do in another garden. We also put some of them into the ADS trial gardens all over the US in the last year before introducing- that's how Wyn's Sensation won the Darrill Hart medal in 2006- highest scoring A sized dahlia in the trials. Some of our cultivars will hit the trials in England next year- we'll see how they do over there.
amaryllis- we put the Emory Paul bloom into a bucket full of water & floral foam to enter it in the show. They don't wilt in the garden if you keep them well watered.
Thanks JROOT. My garden is mostly tones of purple. We bought the dinner plate collection two years in a row. So we got a pink in the collection. Last year my wife also bought another collection. It had Miss Rose Fletcher in it. I put the whole clump in to the garden this year. And you can see the resaults. Lots of pink blooms. I do like pink. But I like all of them.
Miss Rose Fletcher... brings back memories- it was our first dahlia in 1965! A friend gave us a clump we cut it up & every tuber made another huge clump & so on. We don't have it any more but now with around 7,000 dahlias you can see where the addiction started!
Great pictures! Sorry I wasn't much of a bulb buddy, Dale. All sorts of health issues came up - I barely got my dahlias planted - but they are coming along nicely, and I had my first real bloom yesterday - a lovely collarette called Fantastico. I hope to post a picture soon. I say "real bloom", because the small bedding types have been blooming for over a month now.
Anna
I had them just eating my dahlias up. Sprayed with Sevin and haven't seen them on my dahlias in over a week. Spray Sevin at dusk to minimize poisoning the bees.
Insecticidal soap won't work cause they are hard (really hard) bodied insects.
Hate these lil buggers!
Beautiful perfect bloom linht! I got Spike for the first time this year and it is one of the most robust plants in the dahlia bed so far. I aspire to get just one bloom like yours.
Jroot has it right: cut them and enjoy them! Rain is hard as far as waterspots on petals, in my experience. Try to cut them before the downpour, if you're interested in cutting.
Thanks, poochella. I do like Spike because it's such a consistent, robust grower. I've no doubt your Spike blooms will be excellent. I look forward to seeing all pics this season from you, Jroot and of course, Mr. Dahliaboy, Ed, where ever he is these days.
