3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
I suspect you are not getting any answers because you are looking for a definitive answer for something not easy to define.
Meaning (and this is my 2 cents worth) - dahlias are both finicky and yet they are adaptive to their known environment. That is only how I can explain my garden full of flowers when we have summers where you may not see the sun for months. Granted, sun can filter thru fog anyway but my dahlias that have been in the yard a year or more tend to get better with age and have adapted to the fact that the ground is almost permanently moist from fog, the dahlias get so wet the larger ones tend to fall over and the sun (on good days) shines only about 5-6 hours.
I have found that when they get a good dose of sun daily (like this spectacular year) they tend to wilt after blooming. So I have deduced they have adapted to their conditions and have learned to prosper even during 60 straight foggy days, like last year.
This year, I planted 6 dahlias in the shadiest part of the yard and so far 5 have sprouted, one is almost blooming and one is MIA so far. This part of the yard gets about 4 hours of direct sun on a good day and they seem to be doing fine anyway.
In a nutshell, despite what growers tell you, I think dahlias can do fine without 8 hours of sunlight. My yard in August can prove it.
Thank you so much for this gift - really, for what you sent me vs. what I sent you in postage... All I can say is that I am humbly in your debt.
I have planted about half of the tubers. I was outside until 9:30 pm planting rows and rows. I should get the rest planted tomorrow evening. I will now be axiously awaiting emergence.
Thank you once again! Hopefully, I'll be able to take some pictures of your dahlias around September. :)
I just moved to Denver. I thought with no rain my tubers would be up in no time. No way! In MA. where I came from, there were slugs, snails, rabbits, gophers, etc. to contend with. None of that here. Next year I will try plants for sure. They will have to be hardened off before I can plant them though. Corralto's is just plants. I use them sometimes.
I'd say go for it. You will only be out the cost of the tuber if it doesn't work, and actually, you may be able to harvest some tubers from it for next year. And if it works, you totally win!
Some of my biggest dahlias are barely coming up and I may well have to do this with them...they were very slow germinators. Same thing happened last year with dahlias from this breeder but I got good tubers and were able to start them much earlier this year in my greenhouse.
I am only a few miles from you over the border in WI. I was gifted with a number of additional tubers late this year and just finished getting them in the ground last week. Last year some of my tubers didn't get in the ground till mid July. I still got blooms off of most of them, just not as many and not until September. All of them developed additional tubers, so I am able to see if they do better this year.
Since you have a green house and are growing them in containers, you can always move them inside when the early frosts hit. Seems a no brainer to me.
You can buy 'bulb and bloom' food and the best ratios for dahlias generally run 4-9-9 or 5-10-10, which simply means more good stuff for the blooms and buds than for the plant. But the actual growing area, location and space can produce tremendous disparities in color. My Fire Magic is currently blooming and is a vibrant reddish color - not even close to the 'fuschia' color in the Swan catalog much less what other on line vendors show for FM. Add in your particular sun variances (4 hrs, 6hrs or 8 or more hrs) and you may get unusual colors as well.
But then I live in SF where the fog usually blankets the area from late May to Sept and colors don't get washed out. However, that said, this year we have had a tremendously sunny Spring and one of my Patty Cake blooms opened and wilted within 4 days due to the sun it got. Same with my Neon Splendor - it opened that gorgeous orange shading and wilted within 4 days! Normally they stay bright for weeks.
So you can only use photos as guidelines - even the Swan Island catalog tells you the actual plant color may look different from their catalog due to the type of paper and inks used by the printers.
But Steve and Highlander are correct too. You would be amazed at how different the same dahlias look if you only look at photos. Steve is correct - many growers take pics in mid day and the colors are all washed out. The combination of different inks and time of day the pic is taken can play havoc on what you actually get.
I know there are more complete instructions on here some where, but here is a link with images of dividing tubers. I cut the spindly shoots down to about 1 1/2 " when I plant them.
In the right conditions those tubers are hardy!. My mother gave me some tubers a number of years ago that I put in a cardboard box under a table in my basement and completely forgot about them until the following July when I spotted a red flower growing out of the box, one actually bloomed!
Here is a link that might be useful: dividing tubers
I think we have about 90 or 100 in the ground this year, and 4 have not come up. Unfortunately, 3 of those are new ones. We probably have 40 or 50 different dahlias. Most of them are in dahlia beds, but we had more this year than we had space for, so we have planted some on a hillside that has lots of other things. We usually have better luck with the dahlias in their own beds, but I guess we'll see what happens. We really pack our dahlias into the beds we have, probably more than they should be!
Maybe we can do some trading sometime. I'd love to come and see what you're growing. I used to love to go to Connell's and look at their flowers each year. I live pretty close to SeaTac gardens, and I buy from him sometimes.
Wayne - the rule is to pinch them back right after that 4th leaf set begins, so what you are pinching of is only about an inch or less. I have never tried to root Dahlia tops, I doubt that hollow stem cuttings would root, if small enough to be solid , then possibly, but with Dahlias, its easier to just wait and divide the tubers.
I had never heard of tree hoppers so I googled them - wow there is an amazing variety of them - but it doesnt seem they could be responsible for severing the stems of your plants. Its not they way they work, they are suckers, not chewers. there must have been cut worms or something else at work as well.
I get some occasional insect damage to my Dahlias, whats weird to me is it seems one variety of dahlia will attract a certain kind of insect, and a different type another, then others are left completely alone. I mostly use insecticidal soaps, but have occasionally resorted to sevin.
Well, what I can tell you is that wherever they were found underneath the dahlia leaves, they were always right on top of the main veins in the center of the leaves, and right on the spots where I would see them, there would always be a bumpy swelling of the vein in that area. If they had been there for a while, the end of that leaf would usually die beyond the swollen, and now brownish vein area where the tree hopper had been seen. Also, they would attract ants, which would only be there is if honeydew is present, which only happens as a result of an insect feeding on parts of plants.
(Sorry - Just noticed this question)
My containers vary from 8-10" for small and dwarf varieties, 10-12 for the 3 1/2 - 4 ft dahlias and 14 inches for larger dahlias.
They all get fed and watered the same, whether in pots or in the ground. (I know they should supposedly be watered more because pots dry out faster but my soil is sand based and VERY porous and they drain exceptionally fast - so everyone usually gets water as needed).
The trick is trying to decide on water when the fog sets in and they get wet every night. I may actually water the potted ones LESS in those circumstances, since they retain the water better.
David
I don't take cuttings myself but I know one grower who takes a specified number of cuttings then plants the tuber. One can then take stem cuttings and root them off the growing plant if you want. I would think that taking endless cuttings from a tuber would exhaust it of stored energy after a while.
Interesting. I didnt even know your could grow Dahlias from cuttings. Liza lily's suggestion of taking stem cutting makes sense. Right now, if I wanted to, I could snip 6-8 growing tip cuttings off of each of my plants. I may try a few in the fall just to experiment.