Dahlia Talk
By Ted J. Kennedy
07-22-25
This is an interesting time of the year for dahlia growers. The tubers and rooted cuttings are all now planted into their growing positions in the garden. The summer solstice has come and gone and we are in the “dog days of summer”. Fertilizer, weeding and tying up plants are in progress. Water is being liberally applied to the dahlias and the dahlia pests are a constant problem. All this effort and most of the growers have very few blooms. More than one of the avid show growers are removing any early blooms wanting their show plants to focus on growing big and strong and to be ready to produce fantastic show blooms later in the season. The backyard gardeners and cut flower people just want some color in their gardens.
So a bunch of tired and worn out and over heated dahlia growers went onto their computers or cell phones and chose to talk about dahlias and share their accomplishments and tragedies on Dahlia Talk. Yes, there were 30 such people looking a bit worse for wear from all that gardening but still wanting to share the good and not so good things about their dahlias. Note: This is an informal session and people sit in front of their cameras and are not shy about eating their supper or getting a cold drink. And yes, a few do fall asleep. I will not report the names but some are serial offenders and we wake them up when it is their turn to comment.
First an update on dahlia pests. We know they range in size from the smallest bugs to the largest mammals such as deer. But at the last session, we found out that one of us has bears. No, they currently are not picking the flowers to take back to their den. No, they really have not bothered the dahlias and they do not eat them. And so far, they have not trampled down the plants. But what they are currently doing is running through the sprinklers on the lawn next door. Mama bear and two cubs enjoy a nice cool down from the hot weather. And the adolescent cub from the previous year is growing like a teenager. Lets go on to the pests that are in the dahlias.
Rabbits are a big problem for several growers. One clever grower traps them in “have a heart” trap and re-locates them in a far way forest. His successful method is to bait the trap with Honey Crisp apple pieces. He said when he placed the pieces in the trap he was not successful. But when he placed little apple pieces in a line leading to the trap and a big piece inside, they followed the “yellow brick road” and four of them were apprehended all at once. One person commented that he only has “Cosmic Crisp” apples and that drew chuckle from the crowd.
I am only doing some highlights for this summary and lets move on to purslane, the weed from hell. Many of the growers have fought purslane over the years. The conversation started when a grower said purslane seeds were in the soil mix she purchased and the little weeds were popping up here and there. This innocuous statement caused panic in the audience. Purslane has the ability to re-generate into a full sized weed from the smallest piece left in the garden when you weed. You need to remove the entire plant from the garden. People who have had it say it was the worst weed they ever encountered and one of the hardest to eliminate. And then the purslane stories were told. A large grower had his workers remove hundreds(exaggeration?) of wheel barrows full of the plants and burn them. But the best story was based on the fact that purslane is edible. A small commercial grower was said to have told a person that she had a real problem with purslane. It turns out that it is a delicacy in some cultures and that person recruited an entire crew of workers who “harvested” all her purslane for free.
We talked about spider mites and it may well be another creature that should be in a horror movie. Steve from Australia stated he attended a talk on spider mites and learned why they are such tough problem to eradicate. It is because they have such a short life cycle and he said three days from “birth” to where they lay 40 eggs is the issue. If you kill the mites, the eggs still hatch and you have 40 mites for each one that you killed. If you fail to spray again, lets say for 10 days, each mite will have made 40 babies and they in turn made 40 babies and then they make 40 babies and my math may be wrong but that equals 64,000- new mites before you spray again. We discussed various miticides and some are translaminar meaning you can spray the top of the leaf and it kills on the reverse of the leaf too. Others have the ability to kill the eggs. All of these miticides are beyond expensive and you need three to do a good job. The discussion for those people who have spider mites was depressing. Broad mites sounded even worse than regular mites and the symptoms are often mistaken for herbicide damage and before you figure it out, the mites may have won the war.
The theme of the session was “one word “ to describe your interest in dahlias and each person explained why they selected that word. I am not going to list the words and I am happy to say there were no cuss words and it was an interesting way to talk about dahlias.
The National show upcoming in Chicago was discussed. At every session, the show seems to get bigger and bigger and this was no exception. For example: there will be 8 different speakers on Sunday and one will be Connie Young Davis who will reveal all her secrets on how to win Best in Show awards. It sounds like this will be the dahlia show of the century.
The next session will be on August 26th and the theme will pictures submitted by the participants in advance. There will be will be pictures of both gardens and of flowers and I am sure they will engender lots of positive discussion. It will be a “Show and Tell” session for adults.
