3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
Thanks for sharing pics. The yellow one is gorgeous. I am in zone 4 and got all my dahlias in later than usual so I have only had a couple of blooms so far this season. I have been checking this forum for other peoples pics, but no one is posting them yet this year.
My dahlias have always looked a little wilty during the heat of the day even at only 85 degrees and 6 hours of sun, but they do just fine, so dont worry about that if they are getting water regularly.
Warning - Dahlias can get addictive. I too started with one or two from a discount store, then added three or four more from SI the following year. Five years later I have over 30 different types. I gave away at least 50 tubers this spring. Look for tuber exchanges on this forum in the spring. Once you get good at dividing you can expand your collection for free.
Bishop's Children is a line of dahlias developed by one of the big seed producers. They were developed from an old time dahlia variety called "The Bishop of Llandolf" (spelling?) It was unusual in that the it had dark foliage and stems. The breeder found that the seeds from it and the succeeding generations were quite pretty in the garden. The flowers do not keep in bouquets any longer than other dahlias.
All dahlias are tubers. If you bought them in 4" pots, they were likely started from seed (I don't know about the 6" pots), but will have formed a tuber now. Have you kept them in the same pot all summer, potted them up, or planted them out? If you kept them in a pot, you might be surprised at how large they will get if planted out. I'm not sure if they will winter over in your zone, but what I read says they probably will.
Here is a link that might be useful: Info that may be helpful
hello Pdshop,
tried to email/intext/no luck so trying this forum. The voles/gophers/other critters this yr.are so out of control and I,m also worried about winter/fall. From what i read
voles do not hibernate in the winter, they like to make their homes under pine trees w/ a lot of mulch, which is were I found many tunnels this spring during clean up/prep for all my gardening.Lot's of perennial/some missing-voles?
I am still using mole/vole max,the poison peanuts,and the bombs just to try and keep the population down. It is helping.hot sauce and all that other stuff I'm not sure will kill them, insects poss w/cayenne pepper spray did help w/ white fly in my tomato garden/they are gone for now.
I saw a vole very early this morning and new sun flower's grown in planter/treated w/ mole max and plantskydd/transfer
(good sized) to my garden was eaten pretty sure by voles/
Live in R.I.&we are having lot's of rain/washed away to much of treatment.Voles, i read can have as many as 16 or more liter's(lack of better word)a yr.they don't live long but bread a lot and young. 1 reason for the over population.
We have pulled about 30 voles/neighbor the same 12 in 1 day. they carry a lot of disease,insect(big tick problem)
and in winter will eat the root of pine trees and strip it's bark and eat that so I read. KILLING THEM BEFORE WINTER HAS BECOME MY GOAL! A long w/ killing the gopher(now have trap). Mole max & Repel is why I think I have tomato's-use it around perimeter of garden/not in the garden(eating this stuff). Ref: lg. teeth marks poss. gopher.If you know of and where active tunnels are you are ahead of the game. the peanuts are poison-they like them-eat and die. the revenge smoke bombs use in tunnels kills babies-must use both IN TUNNELS.This is the worst summer i have ever had as far as gardening.weird tomato problems/lost dahlia tubers/lost perennials,gardens look wrong in so many ways!good luck w/ getting rid of critters!
mc172016138099ec abbystractkat@cox.net
What height are they supposed to be? Short container types or tall staking types? I'd leave the last two alone; you'll delay flowering further if you pinch now. Even if the ten don't flower, hopefully they'll produce tubers when the daylength of late summer/fall usually causes this to occur. I usually pinch my bedding/container 18" tall seed grown at four to six inches tall. Not sure if I'd recommend, since this delays flowering. But, pinching does cause branching, when they're not naturally prone to do so. Good luck to ya.
Dahlias vary greatly in tuber production. Varieties like Chilsons Pride, Mingus Toni, Alamode, can have 10 or 15 from a large healthy plant. More commonly the average is about 5. Phil Mingus who has grown them for over 60 years figures on 5 tubers per plant. Of course there are the few varieties that make anywhere from one to two or three. Others make five or six but most of them rot in storage.
In my storing of tubers i let the tuber tell me when I take them out of storage. If they are very lg. I wiggle them apart and try to keep eye's on each seperate clump of tubers, usually I get 2 or 3 from each clump, because I like full bushie plants w/ lots of blooms so I try not to make the clumps of tubers to small. I don't usually seperate them before storage unless they naturally seperate when I dig them up. it varies with each plant. hope this helps.mc1720161318099ec rosa. abbystractkat@cox.net
yes, some do store better. I have been storeing them for about 5 yrs. I wait till first frost, if poss., I live zone 6. then I dig them up. cut off all green, I make a bucket of diluted insectcide last yr I used spectracide/triazicide concentrate.I wash them in this mixture to kill all poss. bugs ,lay them out to dry,layer them in old wine crates ,paper on bottom, mulch then put the tubers in box and cover w/ more mulch. tubers do not touch ea. other,label & put in basement. lightly water in jan. bring out to garage in may.lg. or dinner plate dahlias do best.also do this w/ calla lilly and four-o- clarks and canna.I have had good luck. this yr i'm going to try sulfur too. smaller ones i've tried did not rot or bloom. do not over water in winter,actually better not to water than over water. hope this helps.every yr. they get bigger and form babbies.mc1720161318099ec rosa abbystractkat@cox.net.
I haven't used the bins that you mention, but I imagine that they would work fine. I use milk crates.
I've had great luck with covering the tuber in sulfur and placing them in plastic grocery bags that are loosely sealed. (This method is described at length on the forum.)
Peat is not longer recommended as it tends to dry the tubers.
I just left another thread the other day here about insects on mine.
I had what I believed to be spider mites, and some other brown bug that was eating the veins running through the leaf centers.
The spider mites were always in patches of many bugs, and some times I noticed ants around them also. I didnt see any webs, but I dont think they spin webs, but I could be wrong.
They were really small though.
I didnt have any insect control, so I sprayed the undersides of all leaves with the hose with a moderate stream, which washed them all off, then I broadcast granular insect control onto the ground all around them to stop them from returning, but I will still spray them eventually.
It seems like it's pretty common to have mis-labled dahlias from the garden centers or big box stores. Swan Island is more reputable and will probably never have that problem.
The size and shape of your dahlias will depend on a lot of factors (weather, soil, and how you are 'grooming' your plant). In terms of grooming - be sure to top and disbud your plant. That means, do not allow the side buds to bloom on a lateral(or branch) - only the center bud. Generally, the lower laterals produce larger blooms than the upper laterals. The upper ones are usually the ones that bloom first; so sometimes I'll get bigger blooms later in the year once the lower laterals start to bloom. I 'disbranch' many laterals in order to focus the plants energy. With the larger AA or A dahliad, I'll only allow 3-4 laterals to grow initially so that the plant's energy is focused on producing those blooms. B's - 4-6 laterals, BB's etc - 8-10 laterals. A much better explanation of some of the grooming can be found in the link below.
Here is a link that might be useful: Topping Dahlias
Sorry about your dead one. Some of the smaller ones you buy at Lowe's etc seem to die back early, but this is pretty early for that.
Is there good drainage in the container? Are the other two looking healthy? I don't really have any answer, sorry.
I bought a potted dahlia at lowes. It did great for about a month. We've not been having a very good summer. Not much warm weather. It gets watered regularly,as needed. After two sets of blooms,the leaves started turning yellow then dying. (It's not being over watered) The whole plant is mostly gone now but blooms are still trying to appear. They just never get there and there's hardly any leaves left now. It's not trying to get new leaves any more either. I don't the pot is too small. What's up with this?