General Dahlia Chat - 2025

Juliarugula · 2025-01-01T13:30:33+00:00

Justafewdahlias whew! Much better thanks! 😅

MIDahlias

BarryO Maybe we can take care of each other. I have a six year old (I know a lot of people have kids) If I'm home I tend to get easily distracted by........... really anything. Message me your phone number and I will try to remember to text you. I will send you mine if you can do the same. However, I'm not sure what the text number you are referring to is. The zoom link?

calico20hill

YESTERDAY it was hot and humid as I finished setting out dahlias. Today it is cool and raining. I was going to start work on all the other garden chores I have neglected while focusing on dahlias.Instead I am letting my old body take a rest break. It says "thanks!". I have many potted dahlias and seedlings left. I have not decided if I want to advertise a local sale for the known varieties. Or just grow them as pot tubers. At the same time, all my (could be) glorious roses are asking for fertilizer, and grooming...and I have hubby setting up the vegetable garden up the slope. For years he scoffed at my gardening, but now that he is retired he is realizing that gardening is a big status symbol among the people we know, LOL... and he is one with the very restricted diet who could really use the home grown veggies. I am happy that he stays occupied a hundred feet up the slope and not in MY garden, but he very sweet about bringing me what I need, like more Alfalfa mealm, More Osmocote....and fixing the mini sprinklers in the watering system.

He has also become the resident expert at setting out hydrangeas into heavy clay. They appear to be thriving and I can hardly wait for those buds to open and for him to see what his "engineering" work has accomplished! I can hardly wait to see either... ☺

I have been trying to list what dahlias I have planted out and seem to have a lot more Salish Seedlings that anything else. Some of these are going to be 3rd year seedlings this year. I try to stay up with Hollyhill and Birch Bay introductions to keep good Pacific NW genetics going . I also grow some from Swan Island because I really want mine to have good tuber and cut flower genes.

Teddahlia

We do not use "grow bags". We do grow some dahlias in pots but they are either 15 gallon or 20 gallon pots.
People use 7 gallon grow bags and I believe plant one dahlia per bag. Our pots have three plants in them. One per 7 gallon or 3 per 15 gallon? Ours are nice and bushy and show the flowers well. Crude temporary stakes and we will replace them.

calico20hill

I use 15 gallon grow bags and grow 2 or 3 dahlias in each. It works out pretty well. The bags are so heavy there is no problem with wind blowing them over. I don't grow my best most favorite dahlias this way but its a good way to keep stock growing. I have tried putting up wire to tie the stalks to but it doesn't seem to have any advantage. We set 4 growbags together with a little Dripworks sprinkler that whirls in about a one foot circle and gets a bit of all 4 bags..., the grow bag section is at the bottom end of the garden. Mostly I plant extras there, or tubers that have lost their ID's, or seedlings I am trying out. The ducks love to poke around the bags and capture any bugs hanging out...I have 59 growbags (Because I gave my daughter one of them ...)

MIDahlias

What cultivars come to mind growing 36" and shorter?

I'm going on year three growing Jeannie. It's a shorter plant and it's yet to not grow by the taller plants. This year I'm trying to figure out about a dozen plants I have that are shorter.

Bishop of Llandoff
U2 Ania
Jeannie
Small World
Little Diablo
(Stopped growing Cream de Cassis and Cognac)

I'm growing some more PomPons this year. Do they tend to be shorter or depends on the cultivar?
New to me this year
Black Diamond
Willow Violet

Bessie

MIDahlias Crighton Honey is the shortest Dahlia I've grown.

Veryzer

MIDahlias My dark foliage plants, David Howard and Night Silence, stayed at about three feet for me last year.

Justafewdahlias

MIDahlias China doll, Mary Jo, and Matilda Hudson are advertised as being “low growing” and I would say they were definitely under 3 feet tall growing for me here in PNW. One year I decided to buy mostly low growing dahlias because I didn’t want to “deal with” staking them…..my how things have changed 😂

Teddahlia

"I'm growing some more PomPons this year. Do they tend to be shorter or depends on the cultivar?"
HH Snowdrop is by far the tallest pom at 7 feet. Nothing else is close. Pop Willo can be 5 feet while most poms are about 3.5 feet tall. The biggest challenge with poms is finding good stock. Lismore Peggy is about the same height as Pop Willo. An old one named Atom grew pretty tall. Willo Violet is an old classic pom of typical height. Never heard of Black Diamond and in the classification book it is a ball.

MissyWeitzel

I'm having a really rough start to the season when it comes to pests. I generally think of the time between planting and mid June as the honeymoon period where everything is healthy and happy and aside from an occasional slug, there is not much pest pressure here. I get aphids around now but they normally only bother my peas and roses. I applied the triple threat beneficial nematodes 5 weeks ago. I have been working on soil health. I have loads of ladybugs naturally. Multiple times a day I walk through and look closely at leaves. I had a ton of thrips come in seemingly overnight. I also seem to have a really bad mite problem and it's weird because I swear they're clover mites and I haven't ever seen them go after my plants like they are. It's too early for this! To add insult to actual injury, last night I screwed my back up dusting diatomaceous earth. I'm popping ibuprofen and laying on ice packs!

Thanks for "listening". I feel better. Maybe this means the rest of my season will be easy. 🤔

Bessie

MissyWeitzel I'm so sorry to hear about all the difficulties, especially your back. I think this is the place where people understand. Growing dahlias takes, to name a few attributes, determination, perseverance and planning. I'm in awe of those that have been growing for decades, despite the fact they age and their body doesn't work as good as it used to.

NCDahlia

MissyWeitzel I hope you feel better soon and the dahlias kick it into gear. I am one to over worry thinking they won't make it and my wife always says to relax "only the strong shall survive" lol 🤣

There does seem to be more bugs, earlier this year! I even have found earwigs inside the top covers of my beehives where the syrup feeders were.

Juliarugula

MissyWeitzel are you sure the clover mites are doing anything though? I see them on my dahlias every year but I’ve never noticed them doing any damage.

MissyWeitzel

Juliarugula if it's not clover mites, it's another very similar mite. Apparently you can tell it's a clover mite by the longer front antennae and these have that. The one thing that is confusing is there are ones that are the same size and shape but some are red, some rust, some black or brown. But they're all in the same area and on the same plants and I'm 100% sure they're doing damage. It looks like spider mite damage. Maybe they change color after chomping my precious plants?! Before doing any research I thought they were clover mites but then I have been scouring any info I can find and it all points to that too!

Justafewdahlias

What is the tallest dahlia cultivar you have grown or seen? I am thinking of using dahlias as a plant to kind of semi screen an area of my back yard. I am sure overall height depends on many factors for how tall and well each plant grow. In general what are some extra tall ones you can suggest? Thinking of future plans for next year! I have a couple of plants from last year that got to 5 or 6 feet in terrible conditions so I will use those for now. However, a plant getting to 7 or 8 feet or taller would be great!

SteveM

Justafewdahlias extra tall ones you can suggest?

Another Hollyhill suggestion is HH Berry Purple. It grows 7 feet tall for me and doesn't have strong apical dominance so it branches out and fills in nicely. It also has an upright habit so is easy to stake.
The tree dahlia (Dahlia imperialis) is a fun novelty species and one to try if you haven't.

Teddahlia

We have bred about 10 varieties that reach 8 feet. In 2025 HH Razz Berry and HH Sunflare were released and both hit 8 feet easily. Zarina, and Tangelo go over 8 feet. HH Finlandia was 10 feet tall in a trial garden. Lots more here. Our waterlilies have been too short for us but this year HH Calypso(2026 intro) will be a 7-8 footer and Amethyst is only slightly shorter at 7 feet. Bloomquist Jean is a tall one at about 7 feet. I believe Clearview Peachy grows tall. And last but not least our white pom Snowdrop makes 7 feet easily.

Justafewdahlias

Teddahlia Wow, lots of great ideas for next year! And 10 feet tall must be a record!

Teddahlia

HH Dungeness is 7-8 feet as is HH Carefree.

Veryzer

Camino Sitka grows very tall for me as well.

Justafewdahlias

SteveM This does look like a fun one to try!! Wow it says dying back to the ground and growing 20-30 feet! This could be a great summer screen or shade source without having to have a tree there all the time

BackyardBouquets_17

I had a seedling last yr that was 5 1/2 ft tall just planted in a 4 inch sink pot. I wasn’t extremely wowed over it ( it bloomed late an the center wasn’t just real great ) but I did dig it and planted it along my property line this yr along with a bunch of other not real good ones as a bit of a screen to block the neighbors view of our backyard. I spent to much money on dahlias otherwise so I used my rejects for my screen this yr. Plus it gets shade so I wanted to see how they bloom their first.

For a privacy screen I’d definitely look at Ted’s varieties for that purpose. I think he’s got some of the tallest ones I’m aware of plus u know he’s got a good line of dahlias 😀 can’t go wrong with his!

calico20hill

BackyardBouquets_17 Salish Twilight Girl is over 6' tall for me. I like tall seedlings and since I collect a lot of seeds from Hollyhill dahlias, as well as gardening in the mostly benevolent Pacific Northwest, many of my seedlings are that tall. I was surprised to have one that only grew to about 40" last year. It will be Salish Twilight Rose.

Justafewdahlias

BackyardBouquets_17 Dahlias have great potential for a summertime screen/creating shade. I don’t personally know of any other plant that grows as tall and as full as quick as dahlias do. Of course vines grow fast but I don’t want to deal with trellises everywhere

calico20hill

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