3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
Yes, I do love tropical plants and would love to turn my backyard into Hawaii! That pink dahlia is planted with Tropicanna Canna. I also grow bananas, elephant ears, brugs,cannas and have potted bromeliads and palms on my deck and patio. Here are a few pictures of the tropicals.
Abyssinian Banana
Musa Basjoo-kinda small this year, has been much bigger in previous years. And my dog Charlee.
Kai on the patio
Linda
When I lived in the LA area, I left dahlias in the ground, and they came back for several years. Once in a while one would disappear, but they were out front so could have been human animal for all I know. As long as your soil has good enough drainage, then they should be fine and bloom pretty again next year.
A pocket gopher is a gopher that eats roots and stores them in a pocket in his mouth to be deposited in a food cache. Since he is storing food for the winter, he destroys dahlia tubers in the ground. They are very common in the Northwest and in the Bay area.
My Loverboy is about 5 feet tall and currently has 5 flowers out and many more buds getting ready to open. It has perfectly formed flowers that have a lot of depth and I really like the color and form of the flower. Maybe you do have a dud.
I don't give any of my dahlias miracle grow. The only fertilizer they get is some bone meal at planting time and a little more sprinkled on the ground later after they have started growing. They are all blooming like crazy right now. This has been my most successful year for growing dahlias and I think it is because I made a new bed for them which is in full sun all day long and I give them a lot of water pretty much everyday. Some of them started blooming in the last week of July which was very exciting because last year I had some that never bloomed before they got hit with frost.
!. Which of your plants is growing the prettiest flowers?
Brittany Rey and Arabian Night (AN isn't always this pretty, but this summer it has been absolutely stunning)
2. Which of your plants is healthiest?
My un-named semi-cactus that I grew from seed a few years ago and save the tubers from every year
3. Which is the most prolific bloomer?
See #2
4. Which is tallest?
see #2
5. Which is growing the biggest flowers?
Ryn Fou
6. Which plant's flowers lasts the longest in a vase?
Haven't cut any
7. Which dahlia plant grew the fastest?
see #2
8. Which plant started flowering the fastest?
Arabian Night
9. Which do you like the best so far?
That is so difficult...I really loved the bloom on Myrtle's Folly, but it was only one bloom. The plant itself just hasn't done well.
The application of trash bags over the ground at the base of the dahlias worked as far as keeping water from deluging them from above, and the mostly dry soil I applied under the bags was still mostly dry after the storm, but it was obvious that some water still got to the soil and roots by seeping in from the surrounding soil that was deluged with rain, but it wasnt nearly as bad as it wouldve been without the bags in place.
As far as mold, I dont really see any.
The only plant of mine that was damaged by the storm was a tomato, which started wilting 2.5 days after the rain was over.
I added extra stakes to most of mine and cut every bloom to either bring inside or compost. Then I just prayed that I wouldn't lose all of them and tried not to look outside during the storm. I ended up losing only two out of more than 50 and one was almost 6 feet tall, so that was no surprise. Many are leaning quite a bit now but most I've left leaning onto their neighbors and one week later they're all blooming like crazy again.
Thanks all for the feed back. I have been checking this forum daily for the past month or so and not finding many people posting pics, so I thought I would share now that I have a few blooms.
Pinelands Princess is a beauty on the stem, but it doesn't last well as a cut flower. All of those fine delicate petals start drooping fast.
The camera is really nothing fancy. Its an Olympus Camedia from about 8 years ago. C-740 ultra zoom. I just set it on close up, zoom in, and click the shutter.
Here is a pic of the Pinelands Princess fully open. Its difficult to capture the fullness of the bloom, it is almost like a pom the way it turns into a round ball. This bloom is just under 6" and all of the blooms are out facing which is nice for a tall plant (over 6ft)
Here is another of the Fire Magic almost fully open too - its my fave.
I have a few more that are just starting to open - I'll post again when they do
Properly grown in a mild climate like that in Western Washington State, Emory Paul can reach 14 inches in diameter with little care and will be as big as 17 inches(I have seen one this large in a show) in a good year. It may be the largest flower in diameter of all dahlias.
Highlander,
This yr. 1/2 of the dahlias I planted,(a little weird)do have spider mites on them. They are planted in my garden that has a bridge in the middle of it going to the pool. So the dahlias are planted on both sides. On 1 side they have spider mites, growth is stunted but they are still blooming. The leaves are all mottled looking. Going out now to spray w/ Hot pepper wax insect repellent. The mites are spreading and I want to stop this. I used this repellent on my tomato's for white fly and it worked for about 2 wks.
It did not hurt the plants or change the taste. But we had a lot of rain and the fly;s are back! Spraying again/bought concentrate and more organic.
Last yr. my front yard were I plant orange dahlias were doing great then all of a sudden they looked like they were dying. I dug them up and they had wire worm. I treated them w/Triazicide-concentrate and they came and bloomed all summer in to fall when I dug them up/ treated them and put away for the winter in cellar. This yr they are doing fine, no wire worms. Don't know what the other bug is. Did you go on the bug finder on this site, it is helpful. That is what got me going on this site. Lots of pictures. Good luck
karen
Yeah, I ended up applying Triazide about 3 days after I posted this thread, and its worked well so far.
I got lucky in that I discovered the problem almost immediately after it had begun, so you really cant even tell that there was any damage.
As far as the brown bugs I mentioned, they have like a camels hump looking ridge on their high backs, with 2 humps.
I just brought a few of them that I had found on my one sunflower to the cooperative extension for identification because I cant seem to find them on any dahlia site. So now, considering how long it usually takes for the cooperative extension to get back to me, I should know something by the end of the millennium! They are suppose3d to contact you within 3-5 days, but it took 3 weeks one time last year! The messed up thing, is that whenever I go there, there arent hardly any other samples left by other people in the basket there, so they shouldnt be all that busy........
I just googled Hollyhill Big Pink and it is awesome! Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the info.
Linda
I just noticed a mistake I made in an earlier post. The dahlia in the Accent Dahlia photo with the 14" bloom is a Penns Gift rather than a Gitts Perfection. Unc