3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias

Pat...Thank you for great information about Dahlia with your favorite grower and Colorado Dahlia Society. I cannot believe they grow so many thousands of Dahlias. How they can digging up so many thousands Dahlias for storage? I quess they have a great place for storage. I have been looking around my tiny house to find a good storage for dahilias. I do not have basement. I understand the storage temp. would be best between 35-50. My loft room may be good place for it, but it sometime went higher than 60's. I am tempted to buy Dahlias from Park's Seed Co. They are so beautiful and great for cutting too.

Jeannie...The American Dahlia Society is so awesome and very intersted to surfing with Dahlias grower collection their many pretty Dahlias. I have been trying to find Arkansas Dahlia Society, however it seem not have one in Arkansas. I found one nice webiste in Bristol, Indiana where my family lives in Indianapolis, IN. I like to stopped by to visiting their Dahlia garden. I have been trying to find some more information about how to cut Dahlias for selling? How long the Dahlia blooms last long?

Thank you very much!
Kat

Kat - The husband spends hours digging & storing the dahlias- & he does it all himself- all 6000+ of them- some would call that excessive perhaps, but it keeps him out of the house! They take up a surprisingly small amount of room the way he stores them- stacked in milk crates up to 6-7 high as of this week.
There are a few southern dahlia societies- one in Georgia & one in Tennessee- & there's the Carolinas Society, too. This is the site for the Georgia Society- the conditions would probably be closer to yours than in Indiana.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dahlia Society of Georgia

Abbie,
I'm in 7b and the Dahlia Society of GA (located mainly in Atlanta) has been very helpful.
As a newbie last spring, I went to their tuber auction and learned all about the best Dahlias for our humid weather and received information about how to grow and care for them. (7b is a zone that you can keep them in the ground covered with mulch. I'm trying that this year, and if doesn't work, I can always get more.)

So your local Dahlia Society will give you the best information for growing them in your area and, like Plantlady said, the Colorado site has a great list of suppliers.
Thanks,
Liz

Hi Abbie,
Liz has given good advice. The Dahlia Society of GA also has information on their webpage on which dahlias are successful/unsuccessful in the south.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dahlia Society of GA

Dahlianut; I too live in No. Calif. Planted tubers early May, this is when our hot(HOT) weather started. They just started growing along in Sept., here it is Nov. and I'm just now getting blooms. My Mums did pretty much the same, except I did have good foliage as per schedule. If this weather pattern we've been having for the past 2 seasons continues, I think I'll have to re-think my planting schedules. But to what!?!

Calpat, thanks for your input. I think we both have become the victims of some sort of plant delay and nothing to do with our methods. I take such great care of my tubers that I was amazed at the delay in blooms this year. It is actually a relief to hear that you have had the same phenomenon. A relieved dahlianut. Thanks.

Stunning bloom!

This was at a show & it wasn't even the one to make head table- you can just imagine how wonderful the one that did make the head table was!

hello from Germany,

what a beautiful dahlia. I have never seen it in Germany. Where did you buy this dahlia. Please give me the adress. May be that I can import it.

In 2007 we will open a dahlia-garden (only with members of our forum) with 3.000 dahlias and for this garden I am looking for dahlias which I did not find in Germany.

Thank you in advance.
Toennchen

Hope this helps. I really like this dahlia. It is an attention getter. Unfortunately, it was not much of a tuber maker, so I am hoping that the mother tuber survives the winter and that I can make cuttings from sprouts. The photo will give you an idea of the bloom size.

Here is a link that might be useful: Shiloh Dahlias

Yes you can save it from year to year- there's no way we could afford not to. Just make sure you store it over the summer in tightly sealed plastic bags & where it won't get wet- it'll seep up any water it comes into contact with if in a gunney sack or loosely woven bag-- & as Poochella said, toss any that has had a rotted tuber in it.

Thanks, Poochella and Plantlady, it helps to know i will be able to save some money.. All the Dahlia i grow are for the gardens at a care home for the elderly where i work.. I worked in mining most of my life and took up gardening 2 years ago, and enjoying every minute of it, but have a lot to learn :)
I put about a table spoon of sulphur or a little less in the bags with about 4 or 5 handfulls of vermiculite depending on how many tubers went in and gave it a good shake.

Hello poochella and all the other dahlia-friends,
for me it is very interesting to read how you store your dahlias during the winter.
Here I give my e-mail addr. I would like to mail to this forum some pictures of nice dahlias, but I don't know how to do. Thank you in advance for an answer.
Regards from Germany
Toennchen kague.zinke@t-online.de

Hi Toennchen,
I just posted a test of a couple photos of yours right from your website, along with instructions on how to do it, in the Gallery section of this forum. I'll post a link below, otherwise, go to the "Gallery" near the top of this page; see On Topic Discussions: "Switch to Gallery" Click on the Gallery, then see "Kenora Superb" and read there.

You have some lovely dahlias, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to see what you grow in Germany.
Poochella

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to posting photos.

Good point Plantlady. I would love to have a dahlia at Easter, but I'm usually begging the weather gods to warm it up right about then. And in May. And again in June....

I just can't picture your poor hubby out there with thousands of clumps. I bet he could dig and divide in his sleep by now- maybe he does! I've had pretty good luck with tubers in vermiculite for storage too, just a bit of shrivelling, not too bad. Just don't have the room for it here.

I have had some tenacious clumps cast aside as garbage by the sunny side of the garage and forgotten. They've gone on to sprout healthy plants come the following June. And we freeze out here in the foothills for up to a week or more! I was so sick of being wet and cold this year that I lobbed many divided waste clumps into the border of the woods/lawn that gets about 4-5 hours of sun. It was done a) out of laziness and b) to see just who's tough enough to send up some shoots next Spring. If I don't get around to cleaning them up by then, I'll bet there are a few that survive the wet and cold winter, all alone without vermiculite, peat or Saran Wrap to protect them. Maybe we baby these hardy little buggers a bit too much with all our methods and madness?

Our tubers take up remarkably little room for the amount that there are. The husband lines milk crates with newspaper then puts in vermiculite, then more tubers, more vermiculite, etc. until the crate is about 3/4 full. Label on the outside of the crate as well as in with the tubers so he can tell what's what from the outside, then stacked about 5-6 high around the walls of the cold room in the basement. The ones that we don't have many of- mostly seedlings that we're not introducing for 2 or more years-- go into 1 gal black tubs like you get perennials in. You can get more than you think in a 1 gal pot. He puts masking tape over the holes in the bottoms- tubers in, vermiculite shaken down through to cover the tubers, label on the outside of each pot & 4 pots fit perfectly into one milk crate. I'm always surprised at how little room the thousands of tubers we have take up- & how few we lose over the winter. It's by far the best method we've ever tried- & we've tried most of them- including the Saran method which resulted in over 500 blobs of anonymous brown goo when I did it! Yeuch!!
Oh, yeah- & if you saw him chopping about with his machetti when he's cutting them up you wouldn't think they're babied- more like scared to death!

Thanks for response Poochella! nice to hear from you again. Yes I did order from reputable supplier. Got out the paper work and I did screw up a bit on the odering dates vs. delivery dates. No biggie! just curious! While everyone else is in the process of digging, tagging for next season, I'm just beginning to enjoy the blooms that I have right now! Will not dig this year, but leave well enough alone. DD was over & spotted by Dahlia Bible, all the info. you and JRoot provided us with last year. "Mom, you gotta read the instructions", really hate it when she's right! Got aluminum tags, plastic bags, etc. good to go!

DDs are soooooo good at giving advice! Especially when it's advice we've tried to pound into their own heads over the years. "Look thoroughly" often comes back to haunt me when I'm searching for something around here.....

Enjoy your flowers. Get some photos if you can.

thanks -- you're right about the water, where does it go? It puddles up and sits for awhile and doesn't drain down thru', 'cause of the hardpan - I'm surprised actually I didn't have a whole bed of rotten ones!! Will have to start amending the bed when I get the raised bed built -- hated to move, my last dahlia bed had wonderful soil, built up from compost over 10 years, wish I could have brought it with me. Where about's your farm - do you open it to the public in summer? Kathy

We're east of Ferndale, WA - about 13 miles south of the Canadian border. Yes, we do let people come & look at our gardens in summer as long as they call ahead & let us know they're coming so someone can be here to show them around.