General Dahlia Chat 2024

Came across serveral with dark edged leaves. I like that look so it will be interesting to see those what kind of bloom those give.

Portland Dahlia club meeting last night. Not all the 467 members came to the meeting but I bet there were well over 60 people there and it was on Zoom also.
Drum Roll: What was main topic of the meeting? Fertilizer.
Fertilizer is the most commonly discussed subject and the only thing that comes close is how to divide dahlia clumps although taking dahlia cuttings is gaining in popularity.
I will not bore you experts with the fertilizer recommendations but it was based on the presenter's soil test and 35 years of experience. Hint: it involves the generous use of nitrogen.

It is interesting how much wrong information on fertilizing circulates on the net. If I didn't know better I would be out there planting all my dahlias carefully with bone meal. A few years ago it was epson salts that everyone was adding without testing. We've still got a distance to go to persuade folks to test their soil at least once so they have an idea of what they are starting with.

Another topic at the meeting was a long time show grower talking about
(1) Pinching plants
(2) stopping plants
(3) British method of stopping plants
(3)Not stopping plants
(4) mowing down plants with mower
Which do you prefer? All were discussed.
I am a "sometimes stopper" and most frequently just let them grow and then what happens then was discussed.
There is lot of chatter on the internet about the "necessity "of stopping plants and very little on not stopping plants.

Teddahlia Years ago my pet goat got into my dahlia field when the plants were about a foot tall. She went down every row and ate the top 2-4" off of every plant (with great consistency). It was the best job of pinching/stopping/topping I have ever done.

I am pretty sure I planted the last dahlia tubers, plants or seedlings for this year. I found 3 pots of germinated "Rivers Cherry Bomb" seedlings and tucked them into the only possible spots left, And notice I did not say the most maximum spots for their abilty to show off....I already have produced a lot of red seedlings I like so I may have the reddest garden around.

It is not that I love red dahlias that much, but the red ones seem to be enthusiastic seed makers! I'd love to get seedlings from some of the other River's dahlias. Let's hope for a good seedling year this time around!

Hello! Two questions maybe one of you can answer. I couldn't find a way to contact Ferncliff Gardens on their website other than a snail mail address or I would have taken my question straight to the source.
Are Dahlias with the 'Mission' prefix hybridized by the same person as 'Ferncliff' Dahlias - D. Jack?
Are the 'Mission' Dahlias their garden line or cut flower line or do you know of another significance as to why they're not also named Ferncliff?
Thanks!

Ferncliff: They used to also release new ones from Wayne Holland of Hy dahlias when he was still breeding. Margaret and I visited their farm 20 or more years go and we were impressed. They are at higher latitude than us and get more sunlight and the plants responded by being taller than ours.

Teddahlia Ferncliff Gardens sold this new Hy release this year. I needed to get some good "form" genetics into my hybridizing so I was lucky enough to purchase this beauty. https://ferncliffgardens.com/products/hy-beacon

SteveM Aren't goats great? One day I'll have a pet goat or two myself.

Goats are plant eating machines and eat anything green and love to eat dahlias. Our neighbor's goats would escape and get into our property and ate our forest plants to near extinction. We like our forest to be natural, not a desert below all the big trees as the goats ate all the native plants. Chasing them from our property was easy at first but they soon figured out you were not going to kill them and they would ignore you.

The neighbors goats died of old age and so far she has not gotten new ones. The forest is back to normal and beautiful. I am not a fan of goats.

blown_dry Thanks so much!
Teddahlia Have you grown Hy Scent? A friend just got one for this season and I am hoping she has me over to sniff it!

Where do set your flats of dahlia plants close to the garden as you are planting? On my 1976 Kubota tractor that my father and I bought new in 1976.

My first 2 (non-seedling) blooms of the season are Hollyhill Calico and Skipley Road Sherry. I was pleased with the color variation on Hollyhill Calico - I’ve heard a lot of stock has lost the white petals. This one is nice and colorful!

If you are a breeder, HH Calico is a seedling of the Boley's Ms. Kennedy that is in turn a seedling of Ginger Wllo, the pom. I was always afraid of using Ms. Kennedy for breeding as it has the bad shattering problem. I got Calico back last year but the stock is weak and we need another try.