General Dahlia Chat 2024

Krista · 2024-01-05T01:50:48+00:00

When do we grow up and stop ordering more tubers than we can possibly fit into the space we have, for the next season? Is that something I can look forward t...

Teddahlia

It may be Hollyhill Pandora.

Bessie

Teddahlia I thought it might be Hollyhill Pandora, but the other plants I have are not the deep deep burgundy I see with this flower. The color may just be a cultural difference, but I agree, it could be Hollyhill Pandora. Thanks for your response.

Teddahlia

A trait useful to identifying flowers is the color on the reverse of the petals. It is easily seen near the center where the backs of the florets face you.

NCDahlia

I have not had rain for 6.5 weeks watering every few days. Only lost 2% to early rains / tuber rot in May. Had to pull a few plants for virus. No voles this year lol. I see the vole tunnels but they can't get to the tubers so my plan worked perfectly 🤣

Only mistake was the electric deer fence wasnt working correct and a few got in and chomp the tops off of about 20 plants. Rate this year 8/10 for growing. Horribly hot and humid prob worse than its ever been. Realllllly need rain or all my grass is going to die too

Krista

NCDahlia I’m so relieved you were able to solve that vole issue, Success! Sending wishes for some rain your way.

MIDahlias

NCDahlia
I would love to share some, all its doing here is raining. Here is the update from the community garden this morning.

Teddahlia

Here in the PNW if we depended on rain in July, it is guaranteed all our dahlias would die. We have about 6 weeks from July 1st to about August 15th where it almost never rains and in many years it never did rain at all during that time.
HH Melody is a personal favorite.

Teddahlia

We have been tying up the dahlias essentially the same way for 30 years. Learned the method from Les Connell. Margaret says I have the twine a bit too high on the posts. The yellow 170 pound test polypropylene baling twine is so much better that the rust orange stuff. The yellow is smooth and does not tangle as much when you re-use it. The yellow has titanium oxide as the pigment. This row has the tallest plants and most of them elsewhere are much shorter. It is the row that I used too much "more bloom" fertilizer on and for about 4 years the dahlias did not grow well there. This year they are mostly normal. Do not use "more bloom"' fertilizer unless you want to sterilize your soil(exaggeration but sort of true).

Krista

Teddahlia It’s great to see how you tie the row of your tallest plants! Might I ask approximately how much space you reserve between each of your sets of t-posts? Also, how high up the posts did you tie these (even if they’re too high) and will you add more rows as the plants grow taller?

SteveM

Teddahlia I use almost the same system except I use old drip tape (drip tape too holy to repair) instead of twine. I used twine for a few years but kept accidentally cutting it when cutting dahlias for market. It is not very attractive but I don't do garden tours.

SteveM

Teddahlia Do not use "more bloom"' fertilizer unless you want to sterilize your soil(exaggeration but sort of true).

The same can be said for Milorganite. I bought 6 tons of Milorganite 10 years ago and now will not need to add Phosphorus to my soil for 100 years.

Juliarugula

SteveM I use almost the same system except I use old drip tape (drip tape too holy to repair) instead of twine

Clever reuse of materials!

I use that hortnova netting stuff. I was worried it might be difficult to reuse, but I’ve found it surprisingly easy to roll up at the end of the season and then unroll again for use the next year. I actually just finished getting last of it up today.

(So really just another variation of a grid system on 6’ t-posts)

Krista

SteveM I use old drip tape (drip tape too holy to repair) instead of twine.

This is an excellent idea for the old drip tape I’m bound to accumulate now! I’m noting this, thank you!

Teddahlia

Spacing: 50 foot rows and four sets of two posts equidistant. Margaret and I disagree on how high the first strings. We generally only use the two sets but when you have a row of 8 foot tall HH varieties you need that third set of string. No method is fool proof and the cross ties are the key to success. The more crossties, the better the plants are held up. It takes time to do that and seldom we do enough of them. There are as many ways to tie up dahlias as there are dahlia growers. I have seen wonderful gardens with arcane methods. One of my favorites was at Helen's Dahlias( OOB). She planted a rectangular block of dahlias and used a grid system of twine to hold them up. No picture and my description is worthless.
How high is the highest row of string? Halfway up the post. 6 foot post buried about one foot deep so they are 5 feet tall and that would be about 2.5 feet off the ground. The 6 foot heavy duty t-posts cost about $6.00 these days. They last more than one life time and I paid $1.99 for most of ours . I believe I have about 225 of them. Would I recommend my method? In a small garden, I admire one stake and three or two dahlias at the base tied to the stake. This is the way they did it in the early 1900s

Krista

Teddahlia In a small garden, I admire one stake and three or two dahlias at the base tied to the stake.

Thank you for sharing details about your method! I’ll be using this smaller-space approach in our front yard a bit for visual appeal but I’ll definitely have some field-rows tucked behind for volume and production. It’s extra helpful to learn how to support the super-vigorous Hollyhill varieties right from the source.

calico20hill

Steve, I imagine you get a lot more years out of old drip tape then I do with my twine!

Teddahlia

There are lots of dahlia activities discussed here but one that dose not have a thread is weeding dahlias. This is the time of the year when I doing lots of weeding . I do not have a Hori Hori knife. I do use a knife to do close weeding while the weeds are very small. Yes, I do have several hoes too and also have my trusty stirrup hoe. The knife I bought at the bargain bin at our "Bi-Mart" store for $3.00 is doing a wonderful job of weeding . It is a Farberware stainless steel knife with a 4.5 inch long blade and the handle is nearly as long at 4.25 inches. It does not have a serrated edge. It comes with plastic sheath that fits into my pocket next to my bonsai scissors. The sheath has a sharpening device built in that is a good idea but does not work well on a weeding knife. https://www.amazon.com/Farberware-Edgekeeper-Self-Sharpening-Carbon-Stainless-Razor-Sharp/dp/B0CB71C5LL/ref=sr_1_33?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qobN88utj5SznBmoZz-eUd3BtoUUF7QzHp9jGhMqe_dH3XUXUyjVLWbpjy_YzxWNgNu36GQdeg7v2HbNsmoEBuj75HAfgPRy0eRe7frTKFivkDdH868sUZZFCl5zcQ0zXwupzFF6uHljOOItKwbcmAzPS4BhTy5gq4WwQgKJmxyy-ABrdcGFc04xBil_-DCkAWkSmKgfqkzs66Rcdyu813TD1RpfiVnayLyYw6QHkTyXHuKCaERtFrnKeG5HT5iHJ_NueITcrMRPS0-PwLcBvOzhU4yZc-Ov5kJfusVtdOk.Sc-wpSxCCLD6V5hlkz9_zUfrfKXWv39WZi7Fk9cuCCA&dib_tag=se&hvadid=570430656366&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9032862&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=8261188936525144235&hvtargid=kwd-1974996281&hydadcr=13933_13379050&keywords=farberware+knives&qid=1720039678&sr=8-33

Juliarugula

I have a hori hori knife, but this is the tool I reach for most often when weeding:

I also love my stirrup hoe.

I keep a fairly thick layer of leaf mulch around my dahlias which goes a long way towards keeping weeds down, but some come through of course, and there are always a few areas where it turns out I didn’t mulch as well as I’d thought.

Teddahlia

I am looking forward to our next dahlia club meeting when the speaker will be a high end garden tool maker. he will be bringing some items to sell at the meeting.

MIDahlias

I'm trying to clean up my tuber mess. My garden was too wet to plant and then it was too hot. Everything of mine is planted. (Mom's this weekend) I did not organize myself properly and I don't like parting with tubers that don't have a very visible eye or sprout. What does this mean for me? I still have crates of tubers - sprouted tubers. I need to learn how to part with tubers earlier. It's embarrassing. How many tubers do you think I have? multiply that by 5. What happens to them will be decided next week. Time to at least clean up and enjoy some lake time.

I've sold
I've traded
I've donated

Last year I had all the tubers I was planning to plant in paper bags by rows. I will be doing something like that again next year so I'm not sorting while planting.

Please let me know how you organize and get rid of tubers, so you don't have so many tubers and so much clean up in July.

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