3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
I did see couple of eyes and kept tubers out of the plastic bag for a day. Next day the eyes were dried up!!
However, I still put tubers in the soil. Is there any hope now? This was a week ago and temps were in mid to low 70's during day time and quite humid.
Appreciate you response and feedback.
Anna
I live in the PNW too. I've been crossing my fingers that the week of May 14 will be a good planting weekend. I know that Puget Sound Dahlia Association plans to plant the Volunteer Park garden that weekend and I was planning to participate. I've been checking the 10 day weather report every evening. There is a warming trend, but it's coming on very slowly. I'm considering taking my car out of the garage just to make room for more pots! I have any nuber of tubers that are raring to go.
Phyllis
Rebar makes good stakes and at Home Depot they will cut it to length. Also,. steel t-posts are great, 6 foot ones are about right. I believe that if you have room, dahlias do best tied to stakes. Four dahlias planted around each stake and the stakes need to be 5 to 6 feet apart. This is the way they did it in the 1920s and later. They get lots of sun and you can walk all around the plants. Most commercial growers have gone to planting in rows. It just does not look as good.
I go with re-bar. 5 ft lengths driven home well. I only plant one tuber per stake but a friend grows two per stake. I tried the upside down tomato cages but seemed to get in the way when working around each plant. I paint mine a dark green rustoleum. May try the gray PVC. Sounds interesting and would certainly be lighter than rebar. Steve in Baltimore County.
I've had dahlias, glads, acidanthera, and other "tender" bulbs overwinter here in the Detroit area in the same manner. Deep mulching, deep planting, and well drained soil all help. Of course, its a gamble, but it can work.
The one that really flabergasted me was the year that I had a whole bunch of undug tuberous begonias return. It was the winter of 1997-1998, and we had just a phenominally warm and mild winter due to a strong El Nino -- hardly even any snow that winter. I had probably 50 tuberous begonias in a bed, and never got around to digging them. I just wrote them off -- how could a tropical plant from the Amazon rain forest survive the winter in Michigan, even that mild of a winter -- after all, any freezing at all, or even just cold wet conditions, would do them in. Or so I thought. The entire lot of them, to the last bulb, came back in the spring as soon as it warmed up, and they actually did really well that second summer. I did dig them the next year, and of course lost a fair number of them in my basement that winter!
"Dahlias like vegetable fertilizer, which is typically low in nitrogen (the first number on the fertilizer package.) Use 5-10-10, 10-20-20, or the best would be 0-20-20."
Dahlias need more nitrogen than this. There are posts on this forum about the "low nitrogen myth" Nitrogen washes out of soil and needs to be replenished every year. At the Bonneyville Dahlia trial garden sponsored by the American Dahlia Society they only use nitrogen as the fertilizer because their soil tests say that they have adequate pohosphorus and potassium in the soil. Without doing a soil test, most people should use something like the 5-10-10 or 10-20-20 but do so in moderation and do so several times in smaller amounts until about August 1st. Many people who have used fertilizer in their flower beds for several years will have a build up of phosphorus and should use fertilizer with low phosphorus. By the way, the new "greener" fertilizers are lower in phosphorus.
Russ, Do you actually find taking cuttings like this is simpler than dividing and storing tubers? It sounds like a lot more time and work and babying of the little seedling. Maybe your instructions are just so detailed that it sounds like a lot. I haven't tried it, so I dont know. However as someone who only started growing Dahlias 4 years ago, I have had great success with dividing tubers in the fall and storing them with the sulphur and saran wrap method.
I dont mean to challenge what you are saying - I am just curious as to why you think this method of propagation will be easier for beginners.
Depending on the type of dahlia you have, they do grow large. The saucer type grow as high as wide so with lots of foliage it needs space and needs to be tied up.
That should be arranged far in advance of their growing.
I intertwine them with cord, each supporting each other but stakes at picked places.
Yeah� this is a problem for me as well.
I have a cutting garden and I also put the dahlias all over my other gardens.
Yes, you can see the stakes, but it really only bothers me. I know they are there so I just stare at them�. Other�s cant even see them.
I use regular bamboo stakes. So they aren�t too big of an eye sore. You can also keep them pinched back pretty good so they are bushier and don�t need as much staking.
All in all, I think looking at a little stake is worth it!
Keriann~
And here's the error message I've been getting for 3 days:
"The requested URL was not found on this server. The link on the referring page seems to be wrong or outdated. Please inform the author of that page about the error.
If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.
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dahlias.net
Sun Apr 24 20:33:24 2011
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An English grower by the name of Phil Damp used 6 inches of cow manure on his dahlia garden every year. He grew the best dahlias but they did not store well due to the high organic matter and nitrogen. Cow manure is very good and one year old is old enough to avoid most problems.
I also was cheated by this company. Items that was cancelled was shipped anyway. I returned the items but they refused a refund. This company operates under a list of different names and they also have 510 complaints listed with the BBB. Also I was not happy with the plants that I did not return. They were very small and sickly.
Thank you - good link!
My next question - the tubers are in plastic bags with wood shavings. SHould I leave the bags closed or open them. It is still too early to plant here - I'm thinking the first of May. Can the tubers hold in the plastic bags?
Those are wonderful dahlias. They stay very compact and don't get tall and spindly. I can't remember if I even pinched them but to keep them compact, pinch them anyway. You have plenty of sun for them. I feel for you with the Voles. I lost all my clematis. They just tunneled down and ate the whole thing. It had taken 3 years for them to cover the arbor and now nothing. I have tried everything with the voles but my dahlias are in raised beds. I have never had voles there. Good luck.
There was about 6 of us who did a trade earlier this year. There were probably over 200 tubers in my house that exchanged hands!! It was crazy!
I will e-mail you, maybe there is still time to trade...
keriann~
I was in on Keri's trade and all of mine are potted up, too. If you're interested in trading next year, contact me in Jan/Feb.
Gail