3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
My experience from last year is - yes the stems will get somewhat thicker. Pinching them back early helps. Obviously some types of Dahlias simply have much thicker stems, and it shows up right at the start, but even the thin spindly ones should thicken up and get sturdier.
This year on some of my really spindly ones, I have pinched them after the second true leaves, and then after the first laterals began growing I pinched those at the third set of leaves. Hoping to slow down the vertical growth and get bushier, sturdier plants. We will see how well that works.
I wish some of the really experience Dahlia growers were on this forum more, but many seem to have dropped off.
Yeah, it doesnt seem that too many people frequent this forum(dahlias). I have started threads that took a week or more to get just 1 response. I am a member of other forums where you can start a thread, and be almost guaranteed to get a response within minutes. Its common to get 10-15 responses per day, or more. But not here. I've seen simple thread questions go unanswered completely.
I don't know where you are but at this point if it happened to one of mine I would expect it to be up and blooming again nicely by the end of summer. I think you will likely have very nice tubers from this. IT may also kick it into tuber making as a survival method!
Thanks Kerianne,
I will do that. I reread a couple of the Dahlia sites re: topping and pinching back, but didnt find much about regular pinching - only the initial. I'll try your method on at least some of them and see how it goes.
Hope you get many gorgeous blooms for the wedding!
The 1st year I grew dahlias I didnt do any pinching because I didnt know you were supposed to, and the instructions that came on the box of tubers didnt say anything about it.
Every year since I have simply pinched them at the 3rd leaf level. Then I let them grow as many side laterals as they want to grow. Last year they grew anywhere between 3-6 laterals, which is the maximum they can grow in pinched to 3rd leaf level. Then I just installed upside down 42" standard tomato cages(round), after clipping off the protruding straight wires off the tops of the cages, and using them as stakes to stake down the large side of the cage to the ground.
But that wasnt enough, because I was getting about 6.5 hours of sun from May-July, but later once the sun started falling in the sky, I was down to 3-4 hours per day by late September, so my plants grew from 4.5' to almost 8 feet. They were sturdy though, and I just had to tie them to the top parts of the cages to keep them from falling over if they got too many flowers at once and got wet.
But we had 2 hurricanes blow through, and he first one in September dumped around 14 inches of rain with wind, but they didnt suffer hardly any damage. Then the 2nd hurricane came through later in the season in October, and it was much more windy(30-50mph) so some laterals broke, but only about 10%.
I didnt do any other pinching aside from the 3rd leaf level at the beginning.
"Lets say a yellow flower is pollinated by a pink flower....Would it be safe to say that the resulting seeds will produce a pink and yellow flower that is in between the size of the 2 parent plants? What if pollen from more than one flower from different dahlias pollinates a single flower of another flower.... Will there be traits of 3 or more flower combined? "
A yellow flower pollinated by a pink flower will produce several color possibilities. Probably there will be a very few solid yellow, very few solid pink, many blends of the two and orange which in dahlias is a blend of yellow and pink pigments. There is possibility of solid red also. As the previous post said they are octoploid and the with extra genes, you get lots of possible color combinations. I would rule out getting any purple flowers and white would also be very rare. But all could happen.
The same is true for size. Many will be the same size as one of the parents. Some could be smaller than both parents and some could be larger than both parents. Most will fall into what you say about half way. It would be very unlikely that any flower would be two sizes bigger or two sizes smaller.
A dahlia flower when pollinated by a bee can get pollen from any flower the bee visited that day. If the bee visited all of the flowers in your garden that had pollen, the flower could have seeds pollinated by numerous different flowers. Having said that, the flower visited by the bee just before visiting your flower is the most likely candidate. Each seed can only have one pollen parent and by the way most dahlias are not self pollinated but some can be.
Most seedlings look terrible. about 2% look good and 1% look very good.
Apologies for reviving an old thread, but as an enthusiastic grower-from-seed, my view is that if you have a bit of extra space and time it is immensely rewarding to grow plants of many genera from your own saved seed. Yes, it's probably true that in the case of Dahlias you might end up with a bunch of undistinguished-looking plants, but equally you could end up with something lovely. There are few things more exciting than waiting for the first blooms on your seed-sown plants.
I've grown (and lost through frost) some attractive plants from saved seed of what was probably 'Bishop of Llandaff' crossed with an unknown red double-flowered Dahlia. Some of the offspring were rather gangly with floppy-stemmed single flowers. Others were more compact, with semi-double flowers. Flower colour ranged from orange, through reds and deep pinks. Leaf colour also varied but most were dark. The anticipation of their first blooms was like being a child waiting for Christmas!
Dahlias are so easy to grow from seed and such fast growers that it seems a waste not to give it a go.
"Black" dahlias need sun to set the dark pigment. They should do very well in the South. The blackest dahlias I have seen are Ebony Star and Verrone's Obsidian both as black as a black pot. A picture taken with flower in front of black pot showed little difference. One problem is that both of these dahlias have open centers. In fully double dahlias the blackest I ever saw was a miniature ball called "Pot Black". Fidalgo Blacky was nearly as dark. In larger flowers, the blacks are not nearly as black. I like to think that two of our introductions Hollyhill Black Widow and Hollyhill Black Beauty are about as black as any larger flower.
To keep from loosing your dahlia locations...it is suggested that you plant a stake at each one when you plant. All but the miniature varieties will need staking up later as they grow, so by putting in a stake even a small one when you plant you will know exactly where to put a taller sturdier one when they get up several feet high, without impaling the hidden tuber as you stake it. After many frustrating years, I now also bury a plastic tag with the plant name along with the tuber, so when I go to dig it up after its dormant I know which one I am diving and possibly giving away tubers to. A label just stuck into the ground by it will be pulled out by chickens, crows, children, dogs, ets. Been there, done that! Last year was teh first year with 4 chickens in my garden. They pulled out all 160 labels and flung them as they were scratching for bugs! They also unburied the tops of the tubers. THis year they are no longer allowed in there when the dahlias are growing!
I have too many for me to use any artificial lighting, so they just go into my west and south windows. Actually, this year some had to go into the northwest window, too. I find it depends on the variety whether or not it needs more light. A couple of my cactus that I grew from seed and keep the tubers of are waaay to tall; I was just trying to decide this am if I should cut them back or not--I should, but I decided instead to stake really well and enjoy blooms! The varieties in the nw window are actually not leggy at all. I am blessed with great light in the spring, and windows to take advantage of it.
Thanks for the response - What seems so weird to me is that I have about a dozen tubers that I didnt pot up - they were extras or hadnt eyed up yet. THey have just been sitting in baggies with a little potting mix, on my desk in my work shop. They are looking incredibly healthy. only 6" sprouts, but sturdier and greener leaves than the ones I potted up and put in the window. There is a fluorescent light above the desk, but at least 5 feet away. I definitely need to make some changes in how I do this next year.
Are they getting enough sun? As long as they get enough sun, and the right amount of moisture and are growing healthy, there shouldnt be a problem.
I was at a customers home about 3 weeks ago, and she had bought 2 little dahliettas with flower buds just about ready to open. I came back 2 days ago, and they hadnt opened yet, and were about the same size as before(the buds), but the problem was, they had almost all their leaves eaten off by slugs, since she wasnt watching them or applying slug bait.