3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
The 'official' designation for a giant dahlia bloom in the US is 'AA,' over ten inches. But just because that is the POTENTIAL of the bloom does NOT guarantee that size from your plants. Throwing a tuber in the ground and walking away will produce disappointing results if you are going for larger then six inches. Good cultivation practices like watering sufficiently, fertilizing, supporting the branches and disbudding are essential to get huge blooms.
Again, I would treat them differently depending on if they are divided in individual tubers or stored as whole clumps.
I'm not a big fan of drowning them for an hour, though some growers do that. Either they already have enough moisture retained in the tubers to keep the meristem tissue responsible for new growth alive, or it's shriveled past life. Soaking might deteriate its last defenses, leaving it open to fungal and mold attacks.
If you have whole or half clumps, I would put one in a pot and lightly moisten the soil, leaving it at room temperature. The soil would moisten it while protecting from spores.
If you have individual tubers (like chicken legs), I would take a couple and put each in a sealed ziplock bag with a squeezed out moist cotton ball. You can monitor it closely for sprouts or roots, and get a good idea if the rest are worth saving.
Either method, done now with only one or two, will give you a good idea if you should be seeking new dahlia tubers from another source for this coming season.
Hope this different perspective helps.
Cheers!
I'm sorry to hear that there are no cultivars with higher resistance to powdery mildew. With some plants (roses, phlox) there are such varieties. I will admire them in other peoples' gardens.
As for water or not with powdery mildew, watering foliage to wash spores off is the best policy. PM is different from other fungal diseases in this regard. Best to do it in the early morning so that the foliage can dry and not invite those other diseases.
See, I've heard the opposite argument that spraying the foliage might allow the splashing up of spores from the soil... Or perhaps that was nematodes...
Sorry to hear that PM is a deal-breaker for you with dahlias. Thorns are the deal breaker for me with roses, so I suppose we all have our reasons for what we grow, whether or not it really makes sense. ;-) for instance, I'm okay with raspberries, but roses are not happening! (At least for 2015... I reserve the right to change my mind in 2016.)
Usually a spritz with a water sprayer (like people use when ironing to damp the clothes a touch) is more than sufficient.
Mine wrinkle a bit every year (I just checked, they're wrinkled a bit) and make it through fine--but most of my varieties are tough as nails to begin with.
I've always dug mine in the Autumn, but in 2013 neglected to dig my sister's ( downtown Hamilton, Ontario - 6b, in a sheltered spot). Even though last Winter was VERY cold and harsh, her dahlias came up beautifully. I've deliberately left hers again... Worst case scenario - plant some of my extras if hers don't come up.
Hi, I saved a whole bunch of seed from a garden nearby, a lady grows a ton of nice named variety dahlias in gardens and big pots all around this restaurant, last fall I got to collect all the seed heads and I have a plastic grocery bag half full of seed heads. Most of what I saw from her plants they were average size, not huge dinner plate types, 4-6" flower heads. Last year I grew a bunch of the seeds and am growing even more this year, its fun growing seeds not knowing what they will look like, its like christmas morning when a bloom is about to open! They were roughly 2-3' tall with 4-5" blooms. If you'd like to see the flowers I ended up with I just shared them here:
https://allthingsplants.com/thread/view/26205/2014-Dahlias-are-in-bloom/?offset=60
my acct name is jaym1818 and you'll see my post on page 4 and a row of pictures
Questions are fine. My ulterior motive is to get you hooked on dahlias for life, so it's all good.
No fridge, leave them room temp in the packaging they are in. The bag should have perforations to keep humidity from being trapped inside, and there should be peat moss or another packing medium inside to protect the roots. Leave them be until you're ready to pot them up.
Word of warning... Watch them for signs of fungus gnats, which I have seen settling into big box pot root dahlias too many times. They indicate that there is some rotting going on, and you'll want to play doctor if that happens. This early in the spring sale season, you shouldn't have that problem, though.
haha....well it wouldn't be difficult to get me hooked. I love flowers. I'm still working on roses as my biggest learning curve, so I don't want to take on too much and lose the fun of it all. I did order the café au lait last night, so I have 3 varieties. (Garden Wonder and Onesta are the other two). I wanted a pompom type dahlia, but that can wait another year. I love the symmetry of those.
The 2 I have are packaged in clear plastic with I think peat moss(brown saw dusty type stuff) and no perforations, no bugs, and dry. The packaging says they're a product of the Netherlands and they have a 1 yr guarantee. I think that's that pretty good considering where I purchased them from.
Thanks again for your advice!
If one uses peat moss to store tubers, you should not put them in cardboard boxes as the the boxes wick the moisture from the peat moss and then the tubers. Had you used peat moss in plastic bags and loosely tied the them shut, the moisture level would be the same as when you put them in the bag.
When you use vermiculite, normally you use no water as the vermiculite holds moisture(that is why they add it to soil mixes). The additional water is too wet for the dahlias. The most often used successful method to store dahlia tubers is vermiculite and plastic bags and no water. The next best may be wrapping dry tubers in plastic wrap and the next best is the peat moss, if you can keep the moisture levels correct. The same goes for wood shavings and again, one would not moisten the wood shavings, and you must use plastic bags. The plastic bags create a vapor barrier that keeps them from drying out if the humidity is low or rotting if the humidity is high. Remember that commercial growers store thousands of tubers every year. You should be able to store a few successfully.
PLASTIC WRAP SOUNDED CRAZY,BUT THIS YEAR I COULDNT LOSE! EVERYTHING ELSE FAILED IN YEARS PAST,AND I HAD THREE HUNDRED TUBERS SO HERES WHAT I DID
Gently lifted and imediantly hosed the tubers with a strong spray of water
HARVEST CAREFULLY BROKEN TUBERS GREET DISEASE!
SEPERATE LEAVING A PEICE OF STEM ( THATS WHERE THE EYES ARE AND NEXT YEARS PLANT COMES FROM.
DRY WELL THIS MAY TAKE A COUPLE DAYS THERE SHOULD BE NO SIGN OF MOISTURE!.
I USED A TOOTHBRUSH TO APPLY A POWDER FUNGICIDE SULFUR to the tubers coating lightly but well
Wrap snugly without harming stem ends wrap well!
Itd feb and my bulbs are doing AWESOME i check on them twice a month and have lost about twenty but whats great is the other bulbs arent affected since they are seperated!!!! So glad i tried plastic wrap lol!!!!
Both Seattle and Procyon are in the 3-4' range, depending on feeding levels, sun amounts (full sun will give fuller dahlia), water amounts, and so on. Excellent care can cause both to exceed their normal maximum heights and flower more, of course.
Dahlia absolutely require about six hours of direct sun per day, so make sure your indoor location features that. I raise mine outside in my south to west garden where mine receive nine to twelve hours of sun. The mailbox garden dahlia gets sun from sunrise to sunset.
Post-planting, it usually takes about 2 months for the first bloom, but it varies a lot by the individual tuber. I've gotten flowers from my dahlia (Blue Boy and Sun Lady) in as little as five weeks. On the up side, dahlia are in full swing in late summer and early fall when the rest of the garden is getting a little tired.
Number of blooms varies widely by care regimen, plus the larger-blooming dahlia tend have fewer blossoms per plant at any one time. The Seattle, with 8" blooms, is likely to have fewer blooms at once than the smaller-blooming Procyon at 4". Anything from four to fifteen blooms at once is well within the normal range.
There are exceptions. My Color Spectacle can outdo the Blue Boy, featuring fifteen six-inch blooms at a time while the Blue Boy has eight four-inch blooms.
But again, sunlight levels are directly related to blooming strength. If your indoor locale is short on sunlight, the dahlia will bloom poorly, if at all.