My article for the club bulletin:
Dahlia Talk
06-25-2024
By Ted J. Kennedy
What do you get when put 33 dahlia enthusiasts into a virtual room and let them talk about their favorite subject? You all know the answer is Dahlia talk.
I will try to cover some of the discussion of this meeting that has mostly moved on from fertilizer to dahlia culture including some pest control and the art of tying up your dahlias. The order may be off but here are some of the discussions. By the way one person was smart enough to send an email with her questions in advance and most of them actually got answered. Let's start with her unidentified dahlia picture:
Unidentified dahlias: She attached a very nice picture of the flower and it was voted to be Mambo. An identification “trick” is to use the Google search program to search by a picture. Easy to do and quick and I will not explain how to do it and leave that to your favorite computer helper (usually a juvenile and how the hell do they know these things?).
Soil Test Analysis: A soil test was shared with us by this person and we had tough time talking much about it as the test showed virtually everything to be rather good although the phosphorus was a bit high. Even the nitrogen was good and the pH good too. I noticed that the test under the recommendation section had nothing listed. Initially, I thought she did not pay for that but after looking at the graphs, there was nothing that needed to be added to the soil. Probably, one of the best reports we have seen. I would only add some small amounts of fertilizer to plants that look a bit distressed and the fertilizer need only be a nitrogen based product. Fish fertilizer comes to mind for example.
Rabbits: This session was all about rabbits. Well, not really but lots of discussion was on how to control rabbits. I turned off my microphone and did not participate because our wild rabbits do not eat our dahlias. Apparently in other locations they are voracious consumers of dahlias and often come back for seconds after a week or two when there are new shoots from the plant. I surprised that no one suggested to plant carrots as we all know that Bugs Bunny loves carrots. (Poor attempt at a joke). Marigolds may help and we went sideways and talked a bit about marigolds and how they help with insects and there are tall ones and short ones and then we went back to rabbits. Coyote urine packaged in a commercial spray product is effective until it is washed way by rain or watering. A very astute member said that if you use a sticker product with the spray, it will last much longer. Of course, one person spoke out that he used his .22 rifle and the rabbits were no longer at his garden. The discussion went on and on and this is all I remember.
Slugs and Snails: We were informed that we probably missed out on a 3 week slug and snail festival sponsored by an Oregon university. Wow, I was impressed. The person said they studied home remedies for slug and snail control and tested them. We all know about Sluggo and it's main ingredient that is iron phosphate but it is expensive. The university determined that rolled oats is an effective slug control method. The animals eat it when dry and it swells up and they expire. It is obviously non-toxic and if a bird eats the dead slug there is just slug garnished with oat meal not some poison product. Our Alaskan participant has some unique slugs. One species does not eat dahlias but instead eats powdery mildew spores. However, they do have larger dahlia eating slugs that often climb to the top of 6 foot plants to do their munching. Here in Oregon, most of us have noticed that slugs and snails are not much of a problem once the plants exceed a foot to eighteen inches tall. Lots more slug discussion; you should have been there.
Staking and tying Up dahlias and the use of netting: There are many ways of tying up dahlias and some are simple, some complex and some designed for show purposes and some designed for preventing wind damage and some just for aesthetics. Dahlia growers use several methods but we did not talk about the types of twine(We use polypropylene 170 pound test baling twine that is yellow from it's titanium oxide pigment and it is strong, smooth and re-usable for several years). There are two basic categories: People who use nets and people who use posts and twine. Someone stated he tried not tying them up and it was not a good thing. On the net side people buy the netting in rolls and support it with t-posts and usually install two “layers” one at about 18 inches and another perhaps at 3-4 feet. It is installed before the plants are tall and they grow into the netting. The plus is that it works to hold up the plants well. Harvesting tuber clumps is a bit more time intensive as it needs to be removed before digging. A dahlia breeder said he does not use it despite it's efficacy because he uses flagging tape to identify the good seedlings and the netting often removes the flagging tape at harvest time and he has lost seedlings(you do not harvest what is not flagged or if you see the tape on the net you do not know what plant it came from).
On the tying up dahlias using posts and twine some discussion was about a new method of tying them up using a very narrow corridor of tightly strung twine before the plants get tall. Most of us use use wider “corridors” and use “cross ties” to hold up the plants. To be honest, I got lost on how the new method works and he should do a dedicated presentation on it with pictures and/or diagrams. One universal statement was that successful show people tie up their plants with great skill and no judge wants to see a perfect dahlia flower on a crooked stem because the grower failed to tie them up well.
Pot Tubers: We had a short discussion on the oft repeated subject of pot tubers. For some reason the concept of pot tubers is not understood by newer growers while older growers use them with great success. Our Australian participant put in his two bits on how he uses them. People seem to confuse the types of pot tubers and here are the three types: (1) Classic pot tuber: A dahlia cutting or small tuber is grown in a 4 inch pot containing potting soil and is grown in a grouping of other pot tubers that take up little space. They are not fertilized hardly at all and are only watered to keep them alive. They do not bloom or if they do, the bloom is unimpressive and small. The goal of a classic pot tuber is to form a miniature dahlia clump that can be stored easily (usually in the pot) and it can be used the next year to take cuttings or even planted into the ground (hardly anyone does this). Varieties that are poor tuber makers or keepers are best grown from pot tubers as the pot tubers do not generally rot. Pot tubers are also “insurance” and if your dahlia variety in the garden was lost, you have your pot tuber as insurance. (2) Oversized pot tubers: some people grow pot tubers in larger pots( 5-6 inch) and place the pots onto the ground and grow very large pot tubers that sometimes can be divided into two or three sections. Most people do not grow them like this as they are too big.
(3) “Sink Pots “ Gordie Leroux of Keneora fame grew his seedlings in 4 inch pots that he buried to the rim. Teresa Bergman and others found out that named varieties can be grown in 4 or 5 inch pots buried to the rim. The difference between these “sink pots and the “pot tubers” above is that the plants grown in the sink pots are full sized plants and bloom normally. Why grow “sink pots”? Gordie had Parkinsons disease and had trouble digging tuber clumps. The plants grown in sink pots are just popped out of the ground easily. They do not give many tubers but they almost always give you some and the tuber clump can be stored in the pot and divided in the spring.
I am ending my write up here although we talked about the weather, rainfall, growing conditions, planting dates, growing seasons and a myriad of other things. You need to participate it you want to get the full benefit of “Dahlia Talk”.
