3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
Hi lizalily,
Thanks for confirming my guess, bugger, but at least chucking is easier now with the tubers still sitting in a container. And with all this horrible cold wet weather I haven't seen a single aphid/ blackfly yet, so probably no spreading of those viruses.
Well, better luck next time, bye Lin
It always hurts to throw away a dahlia you were ready to love. If there is just a subtle sign of virus I would feed it up and try to get it to be healthy enough to over come it, but since I often sell my extra tubers I want to make sure I am not passing on virused stock. I would try to obtain that one from a different supplier if they can not provide you with a healthier one where you bought it.
I have no direct experience with this but would think if you're soil is dense/heavy, you'd run the risk of rotting out your tuber if you plant them deep. Have you pinched them back after 4 leaf sets tall? This may help them get more stout but you have to get them to the light! If no one else gives you a definitive answer, experiment, plant some deep, some others not. When i plant tomatoes and sunflower starts deep i do not remove the leaves. Good luck!
I just leave them in the ground. Both the orange and the purple dahlias are from last year. When the foliage came up for Brian's Sun, I put a tomato cage over it because I thought it was Purple Splash, which was super tall last year. I was wrong, and now Purple Splash is coming up behind Brian's Sun without a cage. Hmph. I might try to lift the one, but not if it's going to break anything. I'm super impressed with Brian's Sun, very full and bushy.
The small, red dahlia in the picture above is potted and from two years ago. I have to be really careful not to water it too much so that the tuber doesn't rot. We get 50+ inches of rain a year here, so that's a real worry. :/
Brittie, looks like you have success with Dahlias. I am in New Orleans area, almost identical climate to you in Houston. I have heard dahlias don't work here in the heat and humidity. Do you find that to be a fallacy? I bought some called Sky Angel from Lowe's to try in pots because I was afraid to put in the ground as I'd heard they don't like it here. Any tricks/tips for us in the hot humid South?
Tubers quite often sprout while in storage. Most vendors cut off the sprout before shipping. They do this because the sprout will often fall off during shipping. When this happens, customers get worried that the tuber is now dead and contact the vendor for new one. Dahlias almost always sprout again from the same eye or another eye and this is a good picture of that process.
Thanks for your helpful answers.
I guess I am slightly paranoid because I kind of started a collection this season (picked about 20 new cultivars which is a big leap for me) and I was just worried that this wasn`t an early stage of crown gall or something nasty.
And yes, it did sprout, I marked the pott and it sent up two nice shoots.
So a great Dahlia season to you, bye, Lin
I've been taking cuttings off almost anything that has more then one sprout, simply cutting them off and sticking the cutting into the same pot as the tuber. I've been amazed at the results! These were in a nice humid greenhouse so maybe that is why they have done so well, but it sure gives you respect for nature!
Today a duck ate my Hollyhills Santa Baby plant while I was working on planting. Sure glad I had taken a cutting and it had rooted! I would have been devastated if I had lost this one... it is so cute!
I've even rooted cuttings of my new $25 Swan Island Introduction tubers...now that makes you feel good when those root. I get 2 or more for the price of 1.
David, some of mine are still pretty short but are at 3-6 nodes already and are ready to be pinched. I've pinched a few already, but they seem so short to be topping off(only 8 inches tall or so). What do you think? If you are looking to get rid of any of your purple flower tubers when you divide this year let me know;-).
Not sure what to tell you Grace. I would only pinch them back to the 3rd set of leaves when they are 3 times the size of yours - meaning 1 1/2 to 2 feet tall.
However, other than severely delaying their blooming, you will likely end up with a much bushier plant with lots of blooms.
I'll let you know when I divide the O'Condah. It won't be before 2014 however but I'll save you some tubers.
Did you just plant them directly in the ground? Or are you starting them in pots inside?
I usually dont plant tubers in the ground until they are sprouted and growing, especially soft tubers, they can rot pretty easily.
If you place them in an open baggie with moist peatmoss or potting soil, and stick them somewhere warm (as mentioned above) you can keep an eye on them and make sure they are going to be productive before you commit garden space to them.
You might want to do a search on this forum about storing tubers. There are several different ways to do it.
Go ahead and divide them. If you are not planting them into really wet soil then dont worry about letting them "cure".
Hard to believe you grew "dinner plates" in 12" pots! I would think they would need a 5 gallon bucket if they aren't going into the ground. They are usually at least 5' tall.
They had tomato cages and fertilizer and bloomed pretty well. I just didn't have a good place in the ground for them. The bodacious one was amazing... I might have to get another one! Thanks for the reply.
I have we'll draining soil... I remember I watered once and waited to see sprouts before I watered again.
Hi there,
the new shoots often are reddish/ purple, especially of cultivars with purple/red flowers, even pink ones. My cultivars with white or yellow flowers send up plain green shoots.
How warm do you keep them? My batch of potted Dahlias didn`t do much, because the wheather was so cold and I keep them in an unheated room. Now after some days of sunshine, they do grow a bit taller.
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You could check the tuber by tipping the container carefully, check the crown and look for squishy parts on the tubers.
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Or just wait, as long as those shoots don`t look like they are shrinking, it should be fine.
Have fun with your first Dahlia summer,
bye, Lin
ps: let`s hear whether you got hooked and how many cultivars you gonna order for next year...
Fertilizer isnt going to hurt them - soilless is recommended because it is generally sterile, so it wont introduce possible fungal virus.
A lot of mixes are peat or coir based, they would be fine to use.
I dont worry about it to much. I use the same mix that I pot my seedling up into, which is a mix of cheap potting mix, pinebark fines, peatmoss & pearlite.
Pro Mix BX and Fafards mixes are the commercial mixes I have seen recommended most often on these forums. If your local places carry them, grab some.
I would avoid mixes that have water retention chemicals added. Dahlias rot if they have too much water. The little bit of fertilizer that they add to potting mix is probably OK. I always say growing dahlias in pots is not for the weak of heart. Lots of problems that are not encountered when they are planted in the ground. A good compromise is a smaller pot(1 -2 gallons) buried mostly in the ground. The soil temps are cooler and there is less need for watering all the time. They do as well or better than dahlias planted in the ground.
David, since that gold dahlia is well established it must have lots and lots of tubers underground, you could probably make 10 plants by separating tubers. Why don't you dig and divide the clump you have to make more? You could also try scraping down gradually to the tubers to see if you could remove one or two from above without digging the whole clump. Another option would be to use some of the sprouts to take cuttings for more plants.
Thanks Steve:
One is enough for me. I try to have as many different dahlias with different bloom times for each color area. Hence I have 4 yellows for the yellow section, 5 pinks in the pink section, etc.
The only time I have duplicates is if I am making a 'hedge' and want the same color or I take a troublesome bunch of tubers and plant several individuals (like you suggested) in different areas to see if they grow either at all or differently. (Like one in soil and one in a pot, etc)
WOW Come to think of it it does work. I have had moles RANCID in my backyard(which is fenced in) and I have been peeing, along w/ my male beagle for about 2 weeks and not have seen moles. AT ALL!! WOW ok 1 problem! Now they are in my front yard. NOT fenced in! What to do?! I guess when I wake up to take my 2am wee wee it will be in my front yard! Thanx for the posotive info I NEEDED IT! I feel like I'm in Vietnam battling these freekin moles! By the way I am a new home owner in Deltona, Fl so this is all new to me! any comments will awesomely help!!!
I had problems with moles digging tunnels through the root system of my dahlias. In the hot summer this would cause my dahlias to wilt so bad in the afternoon because of so much damage to the root system. Many would just die out after a few weeks, even with water every day. My solution was to get that small mesh chicken wire, small enough that moles can't get through the holes in the wire. Then I dug a hole about 12 to 14 inches deep, about 12 inches in diameter. Then cut the chicken wire to put around the wall of the hole, and cut another one in a circle shape to put in the bottom of the hole. Then just filled in the hole with dirt and planted the dahlia. Worked great. No more problems with wilting dahlias in the hot summer sun with reasonable watering.
I havent specifically grown those, but I have grown other small Dahlias from seed. Some started flowering in about 6 weeks, more often 8-10. As long as they are looking happy and healthy, you should start getting buds soon.