3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
Not necessarily. My guess is that there is something going on with the leaves. Mildew or some other fungal things. This year I stripped the bottom leaves off my plants, the bottom 6" or so, as suggested by some others on the forum. It was to promote better air circulation. It seemed to make a difference. Several plants were bothered by mildew this year, they were dusted with sulpher.
Were the stem(s) healthy? Did you cut off ALL the leaves or just the affected ones.?
IMHO, don't give up on the tubers. At least until you get a good look at them.
Freezing- 32 degrees or freezing & thawing a number of times during the winter will rot them. Also standing water- when the ground freezes, gets ice on it & won't let the ground drain will rot them. You've been lucky if you haven't lost them at 19 or 29 degrees- it depends how deep they are planted as well- maybe since your cold spell was short-lived the ground didn't get a chance to freeze deeply enough to get the tubers.
I LIKE that one. But every new Dahlia that blooms becomes my new favorite. Thanx for Posting Jackie-O. Great Photo's - and you gave me my first smile of the day.
Now, time to git out thar - to water dahlias,
& block out a couple new planting beds for Spring!
I like the excitement of suprise - so I'm collecting seed-heads from my first-year Dahlias, and hopefully, I'll get around to starting them. The floor of my sunroom absorbs sun - enough to provide free Bottom-heat for seed-flats, I think.
I can't wait to have too many, so I can do more sharing of Tubers. I gave half of my first box to a neighbor already!
I always dead-head, so I don't get seeds. I dead-head so that the plant puts its energy into the creation of good strong tubers. As well, I can be sure of the colour and shape of the flowers.
.... different stroke for different folks.
Well, I should have read this last night! Happy Belated Birthday Anna. Your plant gave you a wonderful gift. I am really loving the reds this year, including your Babylon.
I haven't grown dahlias in any size pot, so I can't answer your question.
We had a tremendous wind yesterday that sent everything flying and felled a huge old tree. Happily DH forsaw to reinforce the support for my Babylon and so it was still intact when I returned home. But that tree - oh boy - what a sight!
Anna (Thanks again Sharon for the virtual bouquet at WS, and to Poochella for the virtual cake!! No calories in that!)
Cheers
Anna
I always have tubers to trade in the Spring; I usually put a notice up in March or April once I've seen how the tubers do over the winter. I have sent tubers out in the early Spring to a trader in California, but at that time I'm not sure about each tuber having an eye...
Christine
Storing way up north here lol. Well, my first year I stored them in paper bags (as I was told to do) and I had great success. Last year I kinda got lazy and tossed them in plastic grocery bags (when I dug them up) and had ALL intentions on putting them in paper (so all the Moms around here told me to do ) but I never made it that far. This year....I'm doing alot more (call it safety) After heaps of reading I had better do it properly!! :-)
I'm going to take my tubers down and wash them up tomorrow and see how things go. I'll see if I can take a pic of my mass of mess. For some reason I think unless I'm cutting right thru (like cutting a potato down the middle) I'm going to have to leave them alone.
I have 1 that has 2 stems that are twisted around each other (seems very delecate) and another that has 2 stems but all joined to the same "ball".
Am I the only one that has really super deformed looking tubers???
Just Peachy fully opened- really a nice cutting flower.
Can't remember if I posted this one- Painted Lady- or not, but I like it enough to repost.
Look at the delicate edging in palest purple.
Ditto for this one, but I really like it too LOL!
Scarborough Brilliant and it is hot dark pinky red and white.
I cull regularly. If I don't like it, it becomes compost or gets traded. If I get too many of one kind, they get traded.
If you have a dahlia that is not vigorous, I would cull it. Put it on the compost pile, and don't give away. Most likely, the tubers from it will not be vigorous, either, and you don't want that to carry on. I cull anything that doesn't grow the way it should, or shows sign of any disease. Mildew, however, is not an internal disease and they shouldn't be culled because of this, if that's the only thing wrong with them (response to an earlier post).
Teresa