3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
Vera Seyfang (AAFD), Iceberg (AAID), Lavender Ruffles (AAID), Purple Taiheijo (AAID).
All are 12" and 36" tall. I have grown Purple Taiheijo before and love it, but the flowers can tend to get buried in the foliage. I am growing it again this year, as well as Iceberg and Lavender Ruffles. These are all from Swan Island Dahlias.
Cheers,
Russ
If you are looking for something available from local sources I would recommend Kelvin Floodlight. Kelvin is probably the most widely distributed and easiest to grow dahlia on the planet. For me he grows to about 40in(100cm) and if I don't top him, the first bloom will be around 12in(30cm)in diameter with subsequent blooms running to about 10in(25cm).
Kelvin does not do well in dahlia shows, but if you plant him anywhere close to passing traffic you will have people coming to you door and asking 'What is that!"
I do support Kelvin and I use the inverted plant cage method described at: http://dahlias.net/dahwebpg/Support/NoStake.htm .
Here is a link that might be useful: How to find great dahlias for your garden
If you haven't grown Dahlias before then I would recommend you don't disbud. Debranching should be done on branches that have broken, fallen, or become too laden to hold a shapely position.
The 2nd year I would recommend you make attempts at these chores. Having the 1st years experience of what the plants look like really helps when it comes to deciding what you want to cut off before it bloomed.
Its not that the link provides bad advice, but its advice that I think is meaningless to anyone who doesn't realize how a Dahlia grows. This applies also to new varieties you haven't grown before. How can you recognize a plant that's overburdened if you have always stripped so much of its growth? Equally, I've grown plants that were way bushier than anyone think's they should be and loved them for their bushiness.
But, there are some simple concepts to be learned from those articles. You'll get a better looking flower from a single that you've stripped the side buds from than if you let all 3 grow. Doesn't mean you'll like it better, or that it will look better in a vase...that single flower will be a better representative of the vareity is all.
Many varieties, such as Cabana Banana, do better overall if they are stripped to some extent. Cabana Banana, from my experience, just grows "too well!" Cut it back in a variety of ways and it will just be a better plant. To each his own, how will you know until you see it for yourself?
If you can, in your first year, try to have 2 of each variety. On one, experiment, on the other, let nature take its course. MAKE NOTES!! and take pictures.
Big and bushy, and full of flowers, don't naturally go hand in hand. A plant has to devote resources to foilage, and/or flowers. If its doing both, neither will be at their fullest. I mentioned before about an AA, Purple Taiheijo, that was very full, lush with foilage, and had lots of flowers. Unfortunately, however, the flowers were on short stems and so ended up within the foilage. This meant that they weren't presented well, some were not fully formed, and others died early because they weren't getting enough sun.
Theres more to a plant that simply its food and sun...;-]
So if you haven't before, try what you think you'd like...but don't think your Dahlia sucked because of the results...;-]
Cheers,
Russ
Here's what I know from research (note, not experience, just what I read.)
Tubers have most of what a plant needs stored inside them. This is, of course, assuming all you want is more tubers...or all the plants want to do is survive.
When there's less sun (e.g. less than 14 hours a day) but there is moisture and some warmth (e.g. more than 40-50 degrees) tubers make sprouts. They eye up, create sprouts, and make foilage.
When there's 14 hours a day of light (or thereabouts) and its dry, they make roots.
When they've had both, and light gets less (or erratic) and/or water gets more, they build tubers.
If you've just planted tubers, you want roots and foilage, this will establish the plant well to grow throughout the season. You know your daylight, and your rainfall, so it really comes down to you figuring out what the small plants need most.
Advice about water, IMO, is typically suited more towards the more northern regions. If I give a tuber too much water (I'm zone 5) I have no natural daylight and warmth to make excess water evaporate. The result is that some tubers might get water-logged and rot. Of course soil comes into play, and its natural (or artificial if you've cultivated your garden) drainage.
Where you are this may never come into play.
Bottom line, you never want your tubers to be "wet" on a meter for very long. "Moist" is fine, but pushing it. Works well for the first week or so, but beyond that could inhibit root growth.
"Dry" but warm and long-lighted days are supposed to make roots develop. That's what you want before the "dry season" you may have...so the roots are far enough out from the tubers to find enough water to keep things growing.
Of course if everything is being artificially managed, then you just need to decide what you're looking for out of your tubers.
I use a meter, and watch to make sure I don't make the soil around the tubers too wet.
You're not far off where they were born, so unless you're artificially augmenting what they'd get naturally, I can't imagine you could do much to harm them.
Good luck.
Cheers,
Russ
The liquid bone meal is talked about on a garden show I listen to on Sunday mornings. It is from a company that also has made liquid lime. The liquid lime is supposed to work right away instead of taking months to green up your lawn. Probably the same for the bone meal. The site is www.raingrow.com. Hopefully someone has used it on dahlias when we plant so I will know whether to do it or not.
I would put a 6' dahlia in the middle of a 6' diameter circle of free space.
If you are pinching them to make them bushier, add another 1' to the diameter of the circle.
This gives enough room for the plant to receive lots of light, air, and moisture. It also gives you space to get around it to take cuttings.
You can certainly fill that space with ground cover or tulips/daffodils or anything that will likely be cut down (or cut lower) by the time the dahlias are ready to bloom.
Cheers,
Russ
I've been doing a lot of research about pots and dahlias since the fall. This means I have zero experience other than what Ive read others say, and what success I have had this year so far. So take this for what itÂs worth.
First, to your specific question. Dahlias as usually started from a single tuber. That means that it is a tuber with a neck and crown material from an original clump. If you have clumps now, you can see the crowns at the top of each tuber neck where the old stem is. They appear as slightly swollen portions of the neck. This is where the "eyes" form, and eyes become sprouts, which become dahlias. Each tuber can have many eyes, and produce many sprouts. So each clump has the potential to produce many single dahlia plants that will all bloom this season like your clump did last year.
If your single tubers donÂt have necks, or donÂt have crown material around the neck or the neck is broken, then they wonÂt produce anything but roots. A dahlia that produces tons of roots will be totally without flowers if it doesnÂt have a crown that produces eyes.
So letÂs assume they do have intact necks, crowns, and eyes are formingÂ
Putting them together with the clump in the pot is no problem. Every eye in the pot will likely produce a sprout, whether itÂs part of the clump or not.
The next question is what are you trying to achieve? If you want to grow your dahlia all season in a pot, then youÂre going to want to pick one main sprout and cut off the others once the main sprout has demonstrated it is growing well (I donÂt know, say when it gets 12" tall or to the point where youÂd top it.)
Conversely, if your objective is to simply get started early so your clump will bloom sooner in the summer, then the same advice is probably good.
Finally, if your goal is to get more plants of the same variety and plant the clump in the garden too, then you could take cuttings as the sprouts come up (say, leaving the first sprout intact to become the main stem of the clump when you transplant.) The cuttings will each form a full plant, likely bloom as good as the clump, and should create tubers of its own this year.
Now, one other way of thinking about what youÂre trying is to think that youÂve heard of "pot tubers" and are trying to create them. Pot tubers are cuttings that are grown in 4" pots and left in those pots all season, putting the pot into the ground possibly even next to clumps planted in the ground directly. Pot tubers are nice because their compact and easy to lift in the fall. IÂve been assured they grow every bit as good as "field tubers", which are tubers grown directly in the ground with no restriction.
Pot tubers are started from cuttings so the tubers can grow in the restricted environment. This results in smaller tubers (typically) and more of them (as opposed to a massive tuber in the pot.)
If pot tubers are your objective, then planting the clump (and well formed loose tubers) in a container will get you the sprouts to cut off into cuttings. Plant the cuttings in 4" pots and restrict the water and give them 14 hours of light a day. This will stimulate root growth. Eventually youÂll see the leaves and stem continuing to grow, which should indicate good root growth. These can go into the ground (in their 4" plastic pots) the same time you put your clumps in the ground. Stop taking cuttings about 6 weeks before you plan to plant the clump.
IÂve probably gone way off topic; I hope I did answer your question in there somewhere though.
FWIW, I started 280+ tubers in mid January and have so far taken ~100 cuttings from the 45 tubers that sprouted.
Cheers,
Russ
Wow! Thanks for the great reply! Yes, you did answer my question and gave me more ideas to try! The loose tubers didn't have any eyes or necks, so I suppose they will just decompose. Each pot had at least one clump with a neck, and some shoots already starting, when I unpacked them from the peat they came in. Thanks again for spending the time to give such a detailer reply!! Dave
Thanks for the reply! Will you store them right in their pots? OR will you take them out and store them in vermiculite, or something similar?
Do you have any favorites that you would suggest? I think I am going to try the Dinner Plate Dahlias, they look pretty cool.
Thanks again
Sarah
Right now my thoughts are that I will store them in the pots they'll grow in. I'm anxious to see what the tubers look like come the fall after growing in 4" pots. I've been told they will grow like field tubers (tubers not in pots) and I assume there will be some tubers that will grow outside of the pots...its all an experiment for me...;-]
As for favorites, all of mine have come from Swan Island Dahlias; http://www.dahlias.com.
I have several favorites of differing sizes. On the large side, Purple Taiheijo is gorgeous as is Papageno. Both are relatively early bloomers considering their size. Remember, typically the larger the bloom the longer it takes to bloom, or at least that's been my experience.
I highly recommend two of my favorite smaller dahlias, China Doll and Tahiti Sunrise. Both are incredibly prolific on smaller bushes (2.5'). At one point last year I had some 50+ China Doll flowers off a single tuber. They're both ~4".
You really need to take your time pouring over the varieties. They come in all shapes, flower sizes, and bush heights. Taller bushes can be pinched early to create slightly shorter but wider bushes, but not as much as some advice might suggest. I pinched a Cabana Banana, which is a 7' bush, and it still reached 7'...only it had several main stems and was hard to prevent from breaking at the base (side stems broke due to sheer weight.) Even the broken stems continued to flower, however, but it became a much wider plant splayed out like that.
Consider your garden area, and where you will view them from. If your plan is to primarily view them as cuttings it makes less difference, but if you want to see them in bloom on the bush, you have to give them enough space and structure their height to ensure you can see the smaller/shorter varieties.
I rebuilt my deck into a sunroom in the fall just to accomodate better viewing of my (now) expanded dahlia garden bed. I will have 56 dahlias in the garden, and if all goes well should be able to see them all from the sunroom. Aren't theories grand...;-]
I had success with everything without doing much to them. Do remember they will flower right into November so just because you don't see blooms in mid-September don't be frustrated.
Cheers,
Russ
Have a look at this article about growing Dahlias in pots.
http://www.dahlia.org/seasonal.guides/dahlias%20in%20Pots.html
I have not previously grown them in containers myself, but I plan on growing a couple this year.
Zone 6 is definitely fine for Dahlias. IÂm zone 5A and they grow great up here. You can even start them now and they should be blooming by the middle of June.
This link: http://www.scdahlias.org/howto/digdivide.html offers great advice on many things to do with Dahlias, including how to store them. After I divided my tubers, I wrapped them in cellophane and put them into a cloth grocery bag then covered the top of the bag with newspaper. I then put the bag into a fridge as I donÂt have any cold storage area. You canÂt simply leave them inside your apartment as that would be too warm for them to winter. You might get away with putting them in a cooler on the balcony over the winter if the cooler is made well enough.
Enjoy!
Cheers,
Russ
Swan Island Dahlias (i've had experience with)
www.dahlias.com
Dans Dahlias (recommended to me)
http://www.dansdahlias.com/
Connel-dahlias (recommended to me)
http://www.connells-dahlias.com/
Have Fun and Take Care!
I started Stargazers from seed last summer in peat pellets with no problem. I also started some about a week ago the same way -let you know how they do. If you still want to order Stargazer seed I got mine from swallowtailgardenseeds.com.