3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
Thank you Steve, though am more envious of the fantastic selection available in the US, If I lived there would check up with any local grower to get their recommendations? am sure they would be fantastic. cheers allan Oz.
Right now I am just about finishing cleaning up my re-bar stakes. I use a power wire brush to remove rust and repaint with rustoleum. Last year I tried some of the tomato cage supports but did not particularly care for them. Seemed to get in the way for weeding etc. Steve in Baltimore County.
I second the advice on ordering early. I started my shopping in January and was surprised to see how much had sold out. Thanks for the suggestions ted. I had already decided on AC Rooster also. I was only able to find a couple photos of it online; but the ones that I have found are stunning. Lot's of good "AC" dahlias that have originated in the last couple year. I'm also adding 'golden nickels' , 'darkhorse' and 'ben' to my list for next year. I'm afraid I might need to dig up some of my last remaining grass to make room for it all!!
I believe that your dahlia plants are suffering from virus and will never grow properly.
(1) Throw all stock away and start over
(2) Order new stock from a reputable nursery or get stock from the San Francisco Dahlia Society.
(3) Grow them in the ground if possible
(4) In the pots use Miracle grow but each month give them some weak epsom salts, so that the plants can take up the iron. Miracle grow has too much phosphorus and the magnesium will displace the phosporus and in turn the iron will be made available for the plants.
(5) In the ground, make sure they get lots of sun and fertilize with a fertilizer that has plenty of nitrogen. There is myth out there that dahlias need less nitrogen. It has been proven wrong over and over by reputable growers.
Many thanks Ted(dahlia)
I agree - they may have gotten a virus (which is an answer I was looking for originally). So I have already accomplished 1 and 2.
3 is a problem - I have limited ground space available in my yard which is why I have twice as many container dahlias (and roses) as ground dwellers.
4 is a great point. I use Epson Salts for my roses (growers and old time gardeners say it makes the colors more vivid) so I will try it this year on the dahlias. Never heard that iron angle before so that is interesting.
5 is a BIG problem. Can't control how sunny it will be this or any year in SF so I can only do my best and hope for the best. (I realize that is NOT what you meant but believe me,I have a dahlia in every area of my yard). What gets me is a blooming dahlia in the sunniest spot can be next to another dahlia that MAY or MAY NOT bloom well. That is the maddening aspect that I suspect we all share.
I was one of those that heard nitrogen was bad for dahlias because of advice like this from a well known grower: "Dahlias require a low nitrogen fertilizer, such as used for vegetables". Somewhere else I read you shouldn't use (high? a lot?) of nitrogen either and I always thought it was the nitro that made Miracle Gro such a miracle! As I wrote elsewhere in the forum yesterday, I am going to go back to MG this year though, in part because of advice like yours.
The saddest part is I rent an in-law and in Sept. the owner moved back in (above) and informed me that he wants to build a deck from their unit (I have the only access to the yard) so he and his sons can plant vegetables! (Now that I made his weed patch into a Butchart Gardens.) Building a deck will put about 30% of my BEST sunniest growing space in shade and I will obviously lose more space to beans and peas apparently.
It only figures that by the time I get this growing thing down right, I'll lose half my dahlias/roses/yard. :>(
I agree with you. I did 10 potted last year and they grew to about one foot and stopped!!! Now I have a garden that has bout 75 tubers in it and everything was fine there. I can't blaime water or soil. They just didn't like the pot. I will try again with a different shape pot. The smaller azeala type. Getting ready for old age with just a patio for 2 plants!!!
Any veterans of this forum may recall my dilemma with a container dahlia from last year so you'll know I have about 10 dahlias in soil but twice that many in pots. I have grown them for 4 years now and while it is true the larger ones do much better in the ground, I have good 4-8" blooms on my container dahlias as a rule.
2010 was also an odd year here in SF. A couple pot growing dahlias came up but never bloomed - a couple gave me only 2-3 blooms. But that was equally true of a couple of the ground dahlias as well. What I have noticed though is most of my good container bloomers are first year dahlias and if I am honest about it, the potted dahlias from years 2,3,4 were not as robust as the first year they were in pots. Not sure if anyone else ever commented on this or noticed it on their dahlias.
But on this forum I learned that my thought processes in 2010 were probably wrong. I had read that excess or 'early' nitrogen was to be avoided so I took that to mean none and I never gave them miracle gro, though I did feed them 0-10-10. What I have since learned is the word excess didn't mean NO nitrogen and apparently that admonition applies to before they start growing anyway. Once they are a foot tall or so, it is apparently OK to use nitro on them so this year I am going BACK to my use of MG on them and hopefully they will all bloom this year.
I am anticipating a troubling crop though this year. We had 80 degree weather in November for a short spell followed by 40 degree weather for much of Dec and Jan. Now it is approaching 70 this weekend for 4-5 days and then we MAY go back to rain, so all this cold-hot-cold-hot-cold may wreak havoc on the tubers. Will have to wait and see.
Furthermore, I bet the cultivar is named after this gent. Sadly, an untimely demise for him. They delayed his funeral because of a big dahlia show going on at the same time- what an honor.
Did you have some connection with the person,Moschata, or just like the flower?
Here is a link that might be useful: David Howard, the person
Hi I've really enjoyed growing Frizzy Lizzy, Small purple on dark colored stems. Another is BB sized formal decorative orange that we have been growing for years. Have no name but will share with you enuff tubers for a start. Steve in Baltimore County.
Frizzy Lizzy! Excellent!
Thanks Steve for your offer, email me when you can, I'll be in school but I should be able to respond promptly. We weren't able to dig up our dahlias this year, I keep meaning too as I purchase more for fun the dahlia 'little beeswings' and that makes TONS of tubers. I need to find a better way to store them as well, mine dried out the year before as well. Think I've tried two different methods that both flunked.
Here in georgia the summer was super hot and I had very few blooms. The heat would just fry the flower bud and plants. I have found out that dahlias are tough plants because as soon cool weather and rains came the plants started producing flowers and growing again. Next year we can start again.
Here is a link that might be useful: Check out the Barry Gardens
Dahlias do not like days over 90 degrees, especially when it does not cool down at night. I have noticed that if you get them into the ground as soon as possible in the Spring and grow them very fast with lots of water, sun, and fertilizer they will be about 2 feet tall when the hot weather hits in July-August. During the hot weather they do not grow very fast but they need lots of water and some fertilizer. They will then be ready for their blooming season when the weather cools down in late August and September. If you do not get them to the two foot height or so, they will really stop growing in the hot weather and will start growing when it cools but will not bloom until very late in the year. So the key is to get them growing fast in the Spring so that they can handle the dog days of summer.
What do you suggest for N.? I didn't add the wood ash this year. The ground froze beforre I could do much of anything but get the tubers out. Lord they are big. Ccan you imagine if you got a big bush from just one tuber and yours puts out 20 and they all have eyes? We could cover the state. How many eyes has anyone found on a big clump of tubers before?
If you are organic there are expensive and less expensive sources of nitrogen. The more expensive are bat guano and blood meal and fish pellets. All are available here in the Portland Oregon area but I bet not very available where you live.
Probably the best and cheapest source of nitrogen is alfalfa pellets or hay. Pellets are a bit easier to handle as they come in bags and can be spread quite easily. Hay is cheaper but comes in big heavy bales.
Alfalfa not only has nitrogen but also some phosphorus and potassium. The best news is that it has a plant stimulant in it that makes dahlias and roses grow better. Rose people have been singing it's praises for several years now. If you spread some on the soil in the early Spring, it will decompose enough to give plants a real boost.
Hello Pumpkiwi,
I have had the same experience before. Do remember that cuttings may give you new tubers when all conditions are met. These are: good sunshine, enough water, good fertilizer and importantly short days (less than 12 hours of light). The short days should start at bloom time and extend to the end of the season.
Jacques from santiagodahlias.
Classic case of: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
Grow what you like. Put your own name on this one and keep it. I doubt that it is a named variety and it is probably a seedling that came up in that person's garden. After a mild winter, dahlia seeds that fell on the ground can sprout in the Spring. I visited the garden of friend who had this happen and she wanted me to see the seedlings. Unfortunately, none of them were attractive to me.
Many dahlias are never identified. Lots of reasons: there are thousands of varieties out there. Many look similar in pictures. Some garden grown flowers may well be seedlings that were never named.
If you do post a picture of an unknown, be sure to list the size of the flower as pictures do not capture that. Also, if you have any part of the name or a list of possible names, that would really help. If you have had it for many years, that is pertinent too. And any guess as to where it was purchased helps too.
What I thought was an easy answer is not so easy. When I learned about gardening zones in the 1960s, we used the maps in Sunset Western Garden Book which was our gardening "bible". The zones are called: Sunset's Climate Zones. According to them we here in the Portland, Oregon area are in Zone 6.
But the USDA has a a different system called the USDA Hardiness Zones. According to their charts we are in zone 8a.
But again there is another chart called the AHS Heat Zones that tracks how hot you get in the summer. They count days above 86 degrees F. We are in zone 4 for that one.
I still like the Sunset's Climate Zones because they take into account both cold and heat.
We typically have a few days over 100 degrees and about 20 days over 90 degrees. We seldom go lower than 10 degrees in the Winter and in a typical year the lowest temp is about 15.
Our last Spring frost date with about 95% probability is May 1st.
In the last 22 years at my location, the latest killing Spring frost has been April 22nd. In the Fall we typically have a killing frost about October 31st. This year we went well into November without any frost.
That is the long answer to your short question.
I did a quick search on "The big list"
Check out homestead dahlias. http://www.homestead.grimloc.net/