Camera ought to take nice dahlia pictures.
General Dahlia Chat 2024
I'm mostly done planting and all semblance of planting order went out the window this year. I know I'm going to hate it when I'm cutting orders for florists, because some cultivars are in 3 or 4 different spots. 
However, I'm also kind of excited to see what the overall affect is when I look out over the whole patch and see so much variation in color, size, and form everywhere. Once everything is sprouted and at least 6" tall, I'll lay my drip out and then mulch. We have very sandy soil and mulching really helps with moisture retention during the hottest weeks.
The one thing I did get right is for sure all of my open center dahlias and seedlings are planted in a new 60' x 2' bed I created that is away from the rest of the dahlias. It runs along a retaining wall along the side of our house and I think it will be beautiful from the street. 
Would you believe that it is a bit too cold for planting dahlias here in Oregon? I am planting , knowing it will warm up very soon. Predicted low for last night was 43 degrees and I have not checked to see what it really was. Lows for the next several days are predicted to be in the high 40S.
My dahlias have been conditioning on tables outside for several weeks. They will be warmer in the ground, with these chilly nights coming. (One advantage to raised beds is that the rain drains on through). I better get out and back to work!
I am happy to say that not only was my “overflow” church bed available, they were also short a few caretakers and were eager to let me take on another bed. The organizer of the church garden is a dahlia gardener too, so it’s been fun getting to chat with her. So this year I’ve been able to plant even those extra tubers where I hate to let them go to waste, but I already planted enough of that awesome variety.
November will be rough though. I think I’ll have about 500 plans to dig…
MissyWeitzel There’s a part of me that hopes one day I’ll have room for an open-centered section! This bed is going to be so pretty for all your passersby!
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Not final. But pots have worked, i have to slightly adjust the spacing on a few - I want 24 inch between plants and from where the eyes sprout in the pots. I have sprouts in just about every pot a few are droopy, so tuber rot because we have had a ton of rain. I held back some tubers for that reason and can replace.
Tilled 2nd section which is outside electric fence but that can fit another 150 or so tubers. But all things considered I should have some flowers this year. Drop irrigation down this weekend then t posts.
Most tedious thing was digging down 1 foot and putting in hardware cloth bottom and also up the sides so completely protected from the bottom, that took me over a week to get 5 rows done.
Bedding dahlia; ,almost BB in size
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I want to be a lazy gardener; therefore, I like to experiment.
In a 2022 meeting Ted responded to a question I asked "Swan Island doesn't stake"
So I chose not to stake. After deer walked through my garden and two rows were wiped out by straight line winds.... I swore I would never plant without staking.
Here it is 2024, and until today I haven't started planting. What did I do today? Planted about 20 tubers at church and I'm not going to stake them. Will I regret this? Probably.
Is there anyone besides Swan Island than can share no support dahlia growing with positive results?
MIDahlias last year I didn’t stake my church garden, which is my “overflow” space. They did fine. I was surprised. I think I coincidentally planted a lot of varieties which tended towards short and bushy, which had a lot to do with it. But it seemed like even some taller growing varieties stayed shorter. I’m not sure why. Maybe they got more sun than at home? Maybe because most were cuttings? Not sure…
I didn’t do the Swan Island thing of piling on extra soil around the base midway through the season, FWIW.
This year I plan to corral the church garden as I’ve planted several varieties that I know get quite tall.
[unknown] I have never staked a dahlia, but I feed lackadaisically and don't have much heat and so my plants stay about five feet tall. I pinch the centers early and cut deeply when I cut stems. I also grow in raised/mounded beds exclusively so I can plant kind of deep and not worry about there being not enough drainage. I lose a branch here and there.
5 of my 6 raised beds planted...Will do the 6th after lunch. Its down to which growing seedlings and tubers would I most miss if I didn't find space for! (The Hollyhills are all in and so are those from my other favorite hybridizers). And lots and lots of Salish Seedlings!
THe weather is perfect for planting out today! It is comfortably warm, not hot, with rain coming tomorrow.
I planted a row that is on a slight slope. Like a dummy, I chose to plant going down hill. Several times over the years, we have found that older people like us need to plant going uphill as going downhill is really hard on the legs. Why did I not remember that? And when I told Margaret, she was not sympathetic. Once I made the superhuman effort to get up off the ground, I sat in a chair for 10 minutes to recover. If I were in my mid 20s I would not pay attention to this post and forget it I until turned 70 and tried planting going downhill. 
I DID NOT BUY THIS BICOLOR FLOWER AT FRED MEYER.