3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
mandolls
On the website it says full sun and 2-3 inches depth of planting, and they have a guarantee so I'll just go with what the website says and if they don't come up maybe we can get some more. Will have to wait until they come around again. I honestly don't know how much longer Dad's going to be around :( Has been having heart pains and won't to go to the doctor. I have literally gotten on my knees and begged through tears to no avail.. (Maybe he is just ready to go.) Mom calls him a stubborn Norwegian.
Thank you!
Usually the largest flowers tend to take the longest to bloom, but its not an absolute rule. Some plants simply come one much faster than others. I have a couple of medium sized dahlias that usually flower before some of the poms, and one larger flower that comes on before most of the mediums, but as a general case that is true.
Planting at the end of May should definitely get you some blooms by late July, early August. In my dahlia patch, almost everything is in full bloom by mid August, and I am cooler and probably shadier than you are. (I mean my yard - not me)
Thanks Mandolls. I will try the ziploc-potting soil route. See that you are also in WI. Are you already planting outside? I am in Kenosha, and am a bit nervous about the 20 or so tubers that I already planted out last weekend. Don't know what would happen to them with the rains we are getting... :(
I don't plant my dahlias out until the end of May. The standard rule is if it is warm enough for tomatoes, then its fine for dahlias. I am a bit further north, about an hour east of St. Paul.
Cold and wet encourages the tubers to rot. If you have good drainage in your beds you may be just fine.
I wake up my tubers early and grow them in pots under lights, so that my late planting doesn't slow them down as much. Some are so much slower than others, I have a couple that are 18" tall in gallon pots. Most are in 4" pots 6-12" tall, and some are just starting to get above the soil line. I am planting about 80 this year, about 60 different types. I don't have the space for more - but I say that every year, and then seem to find ways to squeeze in more. They get kind of addictive - watch out.
Dahlias have complex genetics, they hybridize easily and generally don't grow true from seed. It is why all of the seed sold is "mixed". I am not sure what you mean when you say "the variety is white".
You will not be able to tell the colors until they bloom. You may just have to move things around after they start.
I grow the small bedding dahlias from seed inside under lights every year. I start them mid February, and some are starting to bloom when I plant them out at the end of May. Dahlias like warmth, planting them out to early is more likely to slow them down, then give them a head-start.
In the fall you can try to save the tubers of the ones you like, and they will grow true to color and form the following year.
Hi Christy:
I know others will chip in with advice about watering - I personally water the soil on top very lightly if a new tuber - but most experts say you shouldn't or don't need to until they are at least 6 inches grown.
What I will comment on is that you are about to enter the wacky world of dahlias - where sometimes up is down and vice-versa. IMO, dahlias have a mind of their own. I take notes every year and last year my notes say my 'B-Man lookalike' (don't know the real name) gave me a first bloom in late June. This year, it has already bloomed in early May.
Most growers will tell you that early bloomers will bloom within 90 days, regular dahlias 105 and late bloomers 120 days. I have rarely found that to be true. Too many variables - amount of sun, how much you did or didn't water them, how good the soil is, whether snails get their feed bags on and destroy the tender shoots, whether you fertilize them and how often, etc, etc. Overall however, the 90-120 rule is close enough.
I love my dahlias but they are fickle. Best thing is to just do the best you can getting them going and then they pretty much do whatever they want from there on. Of course I leave my in ground year round so I don't go thru the digging, storing and re-potting every year.
Good luck.
Planting them in pots is different from planting in the ground. Either way the tubers need moisture in order to develop, but too much is a problem. Pots dry out fairly quickly, so definitely need to be watered. I pre-wet my potting mix, so that it is damp but not soggy, before I pop in the tuber, then let it dry out pretty good before watering it again. A potting mix with good drainage is a plus.
If you are going to leave them in pots, they better be damn big pots (minimum 5 gallon). most "dinner plates" grow 5-6 ft tall. It would be better to start them in smaller pots, as they will drain/dry out faster than a huge pot with only a tuber in it. I start mine in 4" pots, but then plant them in the ground.
Dahlias are perennials, they are just not very hardy perennials. It is possible that your mother in law has a dahlia that survives the winter. Is it planted against a south facing wall? Is it mulched heavily and kept dry over the winter? The main issues with overwintering dahlias are soil moisture level and frost penetration depth. If the ground is kept dry and frost free at the tuber depth then a dahlia should survive the winter regardless of your climate zone. If the soil is very dry it is more difficult for frost to penetrate than if their is moisture in the soil. I would expect that in much of Utah there would be very dry soil.in winter which would help insulate the tubers. A thick layer of snow that is on the ground continuously during the coldest months would act as an insulator too.
If you can have a picture of the plant, that will help confirm if it is a dahlia and possibly even its variety.
As for what works and what doesn't, others in my region also say that dahlias should be brought in for the winter, but I have had 2 years of dahlias returning from being in pots. This year, maybe the winter was too rough or perhaps last year's growing season was not good enough for them, but they did not return. However, the dahlias I had in the ground are back, so I suspect it was a container issue (I also lost 3 amaryllis bulbs in the similar way -- all the ones in pots are gone but the ones in ground are OK)
You must be in Fla or S. Cal - so nice to have so much color! I finally have crocus & hyacinth blooming, but thats about it. I can't even put my Dahlias out for another month.
I use a MacBook Pro - so not sure what IPad's have on them. If you have "Preview" on there you can pretty much do anything you need to your photos.
I've used pint-size grated cheese/takeout containers in some larger pots and it worked well. I just stacked them (with the lids on), like blocks, to the height that I wanted. When I emptied the pots at the end of the season, I just gathered up the containers and nested them for storage to reuse .
I move mine to pots as soon as they start to sprout at all. The problem with leaving them in trays like that is, as roots develop they will tangle up with each other and you will have to tear them apart.
Yes you can plant them deeper in the pots - you will certainly plant them deeper when they go outside. Cut off any leaves that have unfurled if they are going to be below the soil surface.
Its exciting to see them waking up isn't it?
Since you mentioned that you are a newer gardener I'll point out something that you may or may not have fully understood. If these were tubers that you acquired from a reputable source (mail order, store, an experienced gardener, etc.) you might as well just pot them up individually to start with. The reason some people (myself among them) plant lots of tubers close together in shallow trays and then later move them along to pots is to test them for eyes. When dividing your own clumps it is sometimes difficult to tell whether a division will have an active eye or not. I divided one clump that had over 40 tubers but I didn't expect to be able to carve them all away from the main stem with eye tissue. I just did my best to get a piece of the stem where an eye was likely to appear and then I planted them all in a shallow tray to test for eyes before potting up the active tubers.
My guess would be pink blush
Here is a link that might be useful: ADS Classifications - color
this really helps with sub par tubers-might have to tweak it for alaska-i make a hot compost heap in a half wine barrel-this year i used chicken scratch and alfalfa-cover it with old potting soil-surface plant on sides lightly cover with compost and let it rip-brings back the most miserable withered winter storage damaged raggedy ass tubers
this really helps with sub par tubers-might have to tweak it for alaska-i make a hot compost heap in a half wine barrel-this year i used chicken scratch and alfalfa-cover it with old potting soil-surface plant on sides lightly cover with compost and let it rip-brings back the most miserable withered winter storage damaged raggedy ass tubers