3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
I've never seen a H.G. Hemrick but there is a G.F. Hemerick I almost ordered at Old House Gardens online last year. It's an orange dwarf single. You may want to check it out just to see if it looks anything like the pic you saw in that book. Good luck! Hope you find it.
The longer you leave a dahlia without dividing it the smaller the flowers will become. It doesn't have to try as hard to propagate itself if it has a nice big tuber clump to feed off of so it doesn't have to put out as many flowers or as big ones to attract insects & set seeds to ensure it's life.
The plant will eventually get weaker as well.
You will probably will be back to your bigger blooms if you divide it up. The pot shouldn't make a lot of difference if you watered & fertilized the same as if it was in the ground. I've seen AA sized dahlias grown to size in pots- spectacular!
Finding eyes is very difficult in the fall so just pack your dahlias away in a box lined with 8 folds of newspaper on all sides and cover the clumps with coarse vermiculite. Store in a cool basement, garage or crawl space but NOT somewhere they will freeze. 38-50 degrees is optimal. If you already have a storage method that works use it. When your tubers are in the house always keep your tubers covered with paper or other material so they won't dry out too much and start shriveling.
Check your tubers once a month to make sure they are not shriveling or rotting. Around the 1st of April bring them into a warm area and after a couple of weeks the eyes will start appearing and you can start dividing making sure you have one eye with at least one tuber.
Check out the GA Dahlia Society growing instructions at the link below.
Here is a link that might be useful: Dahlia Society of Georgia
hee hee! I found a wonderful Cafe Au Lait tuber from last winter in the same situation, no vermiculite. It just hung out all summer in a plastic bag in the dark. Since it had no eye, it never got planted.
I have read elsewhere that yes, indeed, tubers planted the second season after harvest can and will grow. Give it a try and please report back.
I have quite a few tubers left over from last spring. Some were in vermiculite, some in saran wrap, some in peat moss and some in nothing at all, but all look viable and have either eyes or sprouts and no mold or rot. I have put them in a box and will plant the ones I need more of in a section of the garden and see how they do. Can't stand to throw things away with potential! If they are varieties that I lost over the summer, I will put them on the bench and take cuttings.
Teresa
Here is a link that might be useful: Ethan Kolasinski's Gardening Page.
Cuttings from seedlings???? This is a no, no !!!! You don't know what the flower will look like until it blooms. And then if it is worth saving, (as in a good double dahlia, great single, a purple orchid, etc.,) then you would take cuttings the second year. BUT - taking cuttings too early in the life a new dahlia can weaken the gene pool thus it will no longer give great blooms in say, five or six years. Please find out all you can about growing dahlia seedlings. Start by visiting the American Dahlia Society web page.
Hello, Tammy,
I am glad you really like dahlias (me too). I am curious to know if the seeds germinated. I have had trouble getting them to germinate if I plant them too soon after the growing season. Seems dahlia seeds need time for an "after-ripening" period, which involves a series of physiological changes in the seeds before they will germinate (no special temperatures, though, just time). If yours do not grow and have not rotted, you might try taking them out of the soil, letting them dry, and trying again after March first. Some of my seeds had 0-5% germination in October but 80-95% a few months later (same batch of seeds from the same plant). I have not tried them at regular intervals to see how long the after-ripening takes, and I was working with wild species and not the cultivars.
I also would caution against taking cuttings too soon. The little plants might not have built up enough resources to recover from being cut back (but no loss of genetic diversity; each cell has the full compliment of genes).
I have some seeds of single-flowered dahlias from my research plot at the university that were open-pollinated (pollinated by insects, so specific pollen parent is unknown). The seeds are mostly from plants of Dahlia coccinea and D. sorensenii, which are two wild species from Mexico. There were some of the cultivated forms (D. variabilis) near-by, so pollen could be from them, too. What type of perennial seed do you have?
My wife and I have been breeding new dahlias for over 10 years now. Here in Oregon we start our seeds on April Fools day, April 1st. They grow really fast and the average plant is over 4 feet tall by August 15th. We put the plants into the ground about May 15th. We grow about 1000 to 1500 each year.
I'd ask around at nurseries or among other dahlia growers, as you likely have already. If you have enough plants to run an experiment, why not lift some dahlias and mulch others for a little hibernation underground? I've had them survive in the ground in our freezing winters and feet of rainfall, so they can probably take whatever Dallas winters dish out.
Good luck!
Running an experiment like Poochella suggests might be fun to try but you can lose tubers bringing them inside just as easy as outside if you don't take the correct precautions. I would just mulch them good 6"-8" of leaves or whatever you use to mulch. That should hold them for the winter and then if you want to divide them dig them up in early April and eyes will be showing and divide one eye with at least one tuber and replant when the soil is 70 degrees. Hold until that time in plastic grocery bags to keep the air from drying them out.
I talked to a grower from Ohio a few years ago that kept his tubers in the ground all winter using a cover of leaves about 18" thick to keep them from freezing.
Check out the DS of Georgia newsletters at our website for growing dahlias in the South.
Here is a link that might be useful: Dahlia Society of Georgia
Try white sticky traps. I have found these are best for attracting the most of the bad bugs, aphids etc. I use white foam (meat trays from the grocery store work good) 2" by 6" stapled on a garden stake and then take Tangle Foot spread on lightly and place every 10'. I know most of the bugs like my white and pink dalhia or I can just see them better so place the stake right next to the plant. Do this real early in the season when they just start to hatch.
Lucky me, I've never had whiteflies attack my Dahlias but they do love my Hibiscus and lemon trees here in SoCal. For me, what has worked best is a good systemic poison (although I am now having trouble locating these!) or simply blasting them off the leaves using my hose regularly. I've read that they like humidity so I don't do this in the evening. Morning through mid afternoon only.
If I get in the mood and the infestation is large, I get out my sprayer gizmo and use soapy water. A little dishsoap and water does the trick. Probably not very organic but it works.
As for slugs, I have them too. Constant battle with them, but like whiteflies, they leave my Dahlias alone. I do have one variety where the slugs climb up and eat the flowers though. Odd behavior in my book! All of the usual slug baits work well here.