3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
Just curious -
but if that Tuber mass was replanted whole,
would those little Aliens develop necks & evolve into viable Tubers in later years?
Or are all back-side growths just wasted spuds - since they do not have access to the stem-knob where eyes usually appear?
I have several Tubers with well-formed lower-end bulbs with necks. They are not attached to the stem - they just grew from the mother tuber. Should they all be trimmed off, & tossed - or could some still develop eyes at some point? (Thanx for sharing your your experience)
Another set of spuds (yellow FD - from Poochella) are big, and show eyes, but a couple grew right into each other. Should I try to cut them apart, or re-plant as a double-tuber?
Hi Jules,
I think they're wasted spuds, as you say. They will not develop eyes as they have no connection to the collar area low on the stem where eye tissue forms. I tried to Google any article on this, but not much is written.
A couple times I've found a relatively normal tuber that sprouts many 'tuberlets' off of it, skinnier than the space ship above. Those get cut off and tossed, but I will save the normal one from whence they grew if it has an eye.
Don't know what to tell you about the ones that grew off the Mother tuber; but I think they need to have some connection to stem/collar material to develop eyes/sprouts. It wouldn't ever hurt to keep them and see what happens, though. Perhaps a pleasant surprise! If there's anything unusual I label that right on the tuber,like a stem tuber growing higher up above the clump. That way I know next Spring that 'xyz' tubers can work or didn't work, as the case may be.
Re Yellow FD, if you can't separate them easily, just store as a whole and plant that way next year. Sometimes you have one eye shared by two tubers that just can't be divided easily. Hard to wrap those buggers too, depending on the angles of their formation.
A stack of tires on the ground would probably keep them dry and warm enough if you didn't have a sustained freeze. But on thinking about it further, I see the straw and peat as a great place for mice and slugs to gather to nibble on the tubers, and I wouldn't do it. In the past when I've left clumps in ground covered with straw, there have been tons of slug eggs found there in late winter/early Spring. Just waiting to hatch and nibble on sprouts. Some say peat has a tendency to dry tubers out, as well.
Can you put them in a box in a building somewhere protected from frost? Preferably in vermiculite, or wood shavings in bags, or plastic wrapped.
Good for you! They'll be pretty.
Last weekend I went to the Salvation Army store and bought an aluminum mini blind for $2.00. There're 80 slats from which I'll probably make at least 400 tags. I wrote with a pencil and it worked. I'm quite happy with that.
Thanks everyone for your input. Does "dollar store" spray work as well?
I also use a strong bleach water for a short time to remove the mildew. Then i cut wherever it looks rotten and do the sulfur thing.
then its vermiculite, or sawdust depending on my mood.
Thanks!
Tc, I would do your cutting first- definitely get rid of anything soft or rotten, then bleach water dip or Lysol spray (I've used that too on fresh cuts and it DOES work great.) That way you've got potential rot hopefully cut out and can add further protection to that fresh cut tissue with the bleach or lysol.
I don't know why you're having such trouble with mildew on your clumps, are they getting enough air circulation while drying? I have just dug, divided, labelled, treated, dried overnight and wrapped mine in as little as 24 hours, or 48, and no problem with mildew.
I hope you have some luck halting the mildew. Am not familiar with dollar store spray. Is it similar to lysol?
Poochella,
I am sorry you lost all your Bracken Ballerina. In spring, I'll send you the best I got - that is if I have not mangled them all.
Putzer, I think I like them all, but the laciniated did not do well for me in arrangements. Maybe we cut them too late.
I found a large photo of Goodwill 90 lurking in my files from this year. Willow yours have much richer pink than mine. Must be the alfalfa pellets, sun or ??? I am constantly amazed at the variation an hour of sun or different soil can bring in the same bloom in different years or locations.
Poochella, I ran across that article and thought I've found it until I read it and it only mentioned 3 blooms.
I've also gathered that the smaller blooms tend to be more abundant on the plant__correct??
I suppose the ones available at WalMart, Lowes and Home Depot are more likely to be what I'm looking for as garden dahlias. Or at local garden centers. I ordered mine from 2 of the NW growers and guess I didn't do the best, choosing pretty faces and awards they have won.
The Derrill Hart winners are definately show blooms but not exclusively show dahlias. They are grown in trial gardens all over the country & in Canada & are judged numerous times during the season by any & all senior & accredited judges that show up at the gardens. The highest scoring dahlia in it's catagory will win the Hart award. One of the things the judges are looking for is the number of blooms on the plant.
So there you go- if you purchase a Hart winner you'll be getting an exceptional dahlia-- not your regular blue-light special!
Hehehehe,
I wouldn't say hubby is all that devoted, we have been married for 4 years now and just about ironing out the wrinkles,
He may roll his eyes all he wants over trees that needs to be pruned, if he wants me to keep make meat balls and cure salmon for him , this is the trade off...hehehehe, it's all give and take I figure...
-they did dry up for the last week and I took my old painting brushes to them yesterday, apart from having a couple soft and semimushy ( I cut them off and tossed) I did not see any rot, but I left all the small roots and have a hard time determine what the eyes are, very few I think... they are stored in saw dust inside a paperbag inside a old canvas bag, in my closet.
I dunked the whole crown, didn't take anything apart.. is that a mistake?
I am intriuged by the naming of the kenora MACOB b. I have however no idea who Gourdie Leroux is, do care to elaborate plantlady?
Thanks,klk
oh, by the way, I have a new page when I get in to gweb. so far It absolutly SUCKS.
It took me about three days to be able to reenter the site, anybody knows whats going on?
Don't tell me we are all gonna ahve start paying for it...?
sigh..
ds.
Gordie Leroux is one of the world's foremost dahlia hybridizers. Anything with a "Kenora" in front of the name is one of Gordie's. He also has another line but I can't think of the name right now- but the Kenora ones are his most famous.
I also had trouble getting onto this site- it asked me for my user name & password - good thing I wrote the password down as I couldn't remember any of the above!!- User Name didn't even click-- Oh yeah!! Plantlady2!
Diane, just to clarify; every tuber DOES need an eye to have a chance at producing a plant next year. You see the eyes at the time of fall division. (see the multi photo posts on this forum about division or finding eyes) Or you may not see them, but suspect a place on the stem end of the tuber that MAY produce an eye in warmer weather. They may not. There are plenty of tubers that are broken, damaged, or eyeless that get thrown away when cutting up a clump.
Raul had good advice, just try a portion in Saran/plastic wrap and store the others as you have before. See how it goes. You don't need to let them dry out too much, just dry to the touch will do it, that applies to skins and cut edges. The big advantage to plastic wrap is space saving if one has a lot of dahlias, let alone the success rate.
Hope that helps.
An audio tape would indeed be...interesting.
And I think it would be cute to see a photo gallery of how all of us looked in the process - especially those who dug in winter. I wore muddy ski-pants, various hats, my dad's plaid shirts, enormous sweatshirts, mis-matched gloves, big rubber boots, etc. A Fashion Massacre, to be sure. But I got 'em all dug in 3 sessions this week...
following our first killing frost.
I think people walked their dogs past my house while I was outside, just to see what the heck I was up to THIS time.
Sadly, many tubers got nicks and injuries, wrung necks, etc. I'm afraid to store those yet - and am unsure if they should dry fully, including cuts, before bleaching?
Am about half done with dividing. Am wondering what the odds of recovery are...for different kinds of Tuber anomalies? Anyone wanna share war/survival stories? (My old-social-worker nerves just can't take just tossing anything that may still be viable - so I need more info and weirdie-survival stories - to be convinced my theories are solid...)
There is no room for fashion in my garden- clothes must be beat up and willing to take on extraordinary amounts of dirt. Martha Stewart I'm not. One thing that I found really useful for all the cold, wet spraying when digging clumps is to wear rain pants! How simple and yet very effective for staying warmer and dryer. Sox and shoes are a different story. They get changed from 'pathetic garden tennies' to 'even more pathetic garden tennies but dry ones' regularly as I can't stand wet feet. Maybe Santa will bring me some nice lined waterproof boots....
Jules, depending on severity, my experience is that nicks and injuries will often callous over. The cuts can be dried to the touch in a couple hours, dusted (if desired) and stored. No problem. Wrung or broken necks get tossed here; too prone to rot. I just now went out and went through my 'garbage bag' of tubers that got tossed for one fault or another while wrapping. Many thin ones had shrivelled too much, some were beginning to mold on necks or tail ends (no sulphur dust yet) but about a dozen were good enough for me to try to salvage. So I dusted them and stuck them in a tub of vermiculite. It took me all of 5 minutes and perhaps I'll have 12 more tubers. Some of them I tossed just because I was sick of tubers!
As for war stories, I have none except for the spring rotters I've dug up and cut off to a mere stub of a tuber, but with green growth intact. Those have often gone on to survive, although slower to grow than healthy tubers.
My thinking is to just try to save them- if they don't eye up or rot, toss them and be done with it, but at least you gave them a chance.
One last thing, I do the bleach thing right away. So the sequence is dig,wash, divide and label, 5-30 minute bleach soak (that way the bleach gets into all cuts/gouges/nicks,) dry overnight, dust and re-label (darn me, that takes so long but I like to see easily what tuber I'm dealing with in Spring) then wrap or store. If I decide to trim long or fat tubers during the wrapping process, I let the cuts dry a couple hours before proceeding with dusting/wrapping.
It's 24 degrees here and I am so, so glad to be done with that whole sordid process. Hope you finish up soon.