Article I wrote for our club newsletter.
Dahlia Talk 03-26-24
by Ted J. Kennedy
Thirty one people talked about dahlias for over two hours. The moderator endeavored to ask the same questions of all the participants and the question was much like the nursery garden rhyme “Mary, Mary how does your garden grow? ” Actually only one Mary was there and most everyone described how they grow their dahlias and the focus was how far apart do you plant them and how do you water them and how do you stake them with lot of discussion on growing in pots and grow bags.
Answers to the questions were the proverbial “all over the map”. Spacing of the flowers was generally done based on the size of the flower with the giant dahlias given the most space at about 30 inches for many of the people. The most common spacing for most dahlia was 12 to 18 inches apart in the rows. Note I said rows and that was not applicable to the very many people who do not plant in rows. There are many people who still use the oldest method and that is planting dahlias at the base of a stake. The conversation for those people was, what kind of stake? It was sort of like a history lesson. The traditional way to grow dahlias on stakes dates back well into the 19th century and people used wooden stakes. I am happy to report that some people still use wooden stakes. For example the Australian grower uses 6 foot wooden stakes to grow his show flowers. They are called tomato stakes there and are getting harder to find. He stated that his soil is very sandy and that wood stakes(when new especially) are more stable in the winds there. They do last a few years and get shorter as they are cut down and are used on shorter plants. He stated that the typical price is about $4.00 per stake but that his club had negotiated a $2.00 per stake price.
Continuing on the subject of stakes, a direct replacement for wood is of course is metal stakes and the most common one mentioned was half inch re-bar available at places like Home Depot, where they will cut it to length. One grower stated that she did not like the rusty look of the re-bar and she buys epoxy coated re-bar for her garden. One gentleman said he likes the look of rust.
Some talk went to irrigation and one person was placing her ¾ inch header pipe and asked how to both get the holes for the fittings and how to keep the pipe from twisting and the lines are not in a straight row on the header pipe. The cheap tool made of plastic to make the holes works, but the best answer was to use a cordless drill. And the answer for the twisted pipe was that he cuts off the pipe and glues a coupling to correct the problem. I stated that my kit came with small shutoff valves for each row and that it is nice to be able to turn off a row while working on it.
The content of the two hour zoom meeting is hard to capture in words as so many things are discussed and I am only giving you a taste of what was discussed. You really need to participate and offer your knowledge and get so much in return.
One discussion a bit off subject, was a discussion on seed production in dahlias and the presenter stated that he has observed three separate seed setting periods in dahlias. Yes, they were number one, number two and number three and he explained the dates and reasons and how to coax more seed from dahlias. Interesting discussion.
Back to spacing, stakes and spacing and distance between rows was discussed but let's move on to the more interesting conversation on the newer dahlia growing method: grow bags. People are using seven gallon grow bags to grow dahlias and one advantage is that with some effort they can be moved. Try that with dahlias in row. The bags are available on Amazon and it was said be sure the bags have a handle and the cost was somewhere between $1.25 and $2.00 each. What do you put into the bags for soil? There was lots of discussion of buying loads of 3 way or 4 way soil mix in bulk(and sharing with neighbors). Lots of talk about how much a the bag weighs when filled and a comparison was made to a five gallon bucket of dirt but a bit more as the bags are seven gallons. Grow bags seem to have lots of happy customers.
A short discussion was on shade cloth and the person planning his new structure was going have it be 9 feet above the garden. Two people quickly pointed out that 11 feet is more appropriate as a 6 foot dahlia grows to 11 feet under shade cloth. One person said a local fanatic had his at 13 feet.
Spacing of the emitters on t-tape was discussed. By the way, the term t-tape is the replacement for what we used to call drip tape and it comes in 1,000 foot rolls and it is used to water dahlias by most large growers. You can buy the tape with the emitters spaced at 12 inches, 6 inches, or 4 inches. I use 12 inches as it takes longer to soak the garden and I do not use a timer. Others like the ones that put out water at much faster rate. Whatever suits you is the answer.
Horticultural netting was discussed at length. You missed that discussion. You also missed the discussion on the “stopping” of dahlias system used in the U.K. and some dahlia show timing for the production of show blooms.
Last month one of the participants in the discussion about labels and permanent markers made the comment that permanent ink can be removed from a plastic garden tags by using steel wool. Dahlia Talk is one of those places where you can find out things you never knew. I searched my garage for my 20 year old packet of steel wool and it was right where I left it 20 years ago. It was in the old cabinet above the workbench near where we keep the tri sodium phosphate that we bought at the same time. I pulled out one of the large sized “loaves” of the steel wool and then found several of my used 6 inch plant tags. When you are a dahlia breeder and a grower of container plants and all kinds of flowers, you use a lot of garden tags. In fact, we use about 4,000 tags each year. We buy them in rolls of 2,000 tags and historically they cost about $40.00 per roll. Margaret prefers colored tags and pink and lavender are her favorites. The steel wool exceeded my expectations in removing the Sharpie ink and with about 3 swipes with the dry steel wool, the old name disappeared and the tag was ready for a new name. Am I really that cheap that I am celebrating saving two cents on a lavender plant tag? You bet I am.
