General Dahlia Chat 2023

blown_dry · 2023-02-04T23:41:17+00:00

Continuing from https://cubits.org/Dahlias/thread/view/91587/?offset=560#end_of_thread

KitCMC

Happy Birthday @Teddahlia - I had to get up a few times from last night’s chat to check on a cake I was baking for my oldest kiddo who shares a birthday with you. I hope you have a great day and your best seedling year yet!

Krista

KitCMC Birthday wishes to your eldest too, how lucky to have a mama-baked birthday cake to celebrate. I bet it’ll be delicious! 🎂

KitCMC

Krista thanks! Boston cream pie with crème mousseline frosting - yum!

MissyWeitzel

Does anyone have an idea where I can get a copy of John Menzel's book, 'Dahlias in Australia "The Winkie Way"? His website says it is available, however it says to use his email address and he passed away a year or two ago. I don't see any availability in the U.S. anywhere I've checked. Curious if there's some obscure bookstore or website you may be able to suggest?

Teddahlia

Sign on to Dahlia Talk (next one is March 28) and Steve Cox from Australia has been there and he answers questions. His Facebook;
https://www.facebook.com/stephen.cox.7543

MissyWeitzel

Teddahlia thank you! We have our West Michigan DS meetings the same nights as your Dahlia talks unfortunately. I'm doing a demo and therefore can't miss [the opportunity to embarrass myself in front of a group]. I'll do some more poking around and ask some dahlia friends if they have a copy I can borrow. I mostly want to read his description of how he used pulse watering with his dahlias. 😊

Krista

KitCMC Oh Cate! That sounds divine, wow! 😋

Teddahlia

The idea for the pulse watering is that the plant will take up the water from the soil immediately when it it is pulsed(short burst of water in the drip line) into soil. The soil will stay dry but the plants hydrated. Very little water is used . It helps the plants survive in extreme temps.

MissyWeitzel

In case anyone was curious, I was able to get in touch with John Menzel's wife in Australia. She says she has copies and can ship one internationally for $75 AUS, which works out to be around $50 USD. 😊

The reason why I'm particularly interested in reading his book is he had sandy soil in Winkie and adapted the pulse watering system used by tree growers in his area to his dahlia patch.
I can read about pulse watering elsewhere, but I'd really like to read about it in regards to dahlias and sandy soil, which is what I grow and have. I'm on a quest for healthier soil and learning all I can.

Pulse watering is supposed to make a super even moisture level in the soil, which is difficult to achieve in sandy soil. If the soil is evenly moist, it reduces water stress and keeps the microbes in the soil extra happy, leading to happier plants. It also can greatly reduce water usage overall. But I'm just starting to learn about it, so I'm not a good person to explain it!

SteveM

MissyWeitzel Here is a link to John Menzel's description of the Pulse Watering method he uses:
https://pndcdahlia.com/Bulletins/PulseWateringforDahlias.pdf
It is very interesting and, although the exact method he describes wouldn't work in my situation, I think there are parts of it that look promising and I will try a hybrid method as an experiment..

AKWindWatcher

Teddahlia So I got a whole bunch of Oasis cubes because folks were raving about them. I'm absolutely in the sooooo not impressed camp. I took 3 stem cuttings of 1 variety on the same day. I put 2 in Oasis cubes and the other in a Rapid Rooter cube (what I've always used - it's similar to Root Riot). The one in the Rapid Rooter cube is going gangbusters. Lots of healthy roots and new growth. The ones in the Oasis cubes are just pitiful. Hardly any roots, the original leaves on the stem cutting are basically toast and only a TINY (think 2 day old seedling) amount of new growth.

Since I now have all these Oasis cubes, I'm just going to use them for starting seeds that I'm not too concerned about and go back to the Rapid Rooter cubes for cuttings.

Teddahlia

I will be using peat based germination mix to root all our cuttings and will not experiment with these "fancy smancy" products. I do have a bubbler machine that sits on the top shelf, unused. It works but is a gimmick.

Krista

Teddahlia Oh what is a bubbler machine used for?

Teddahlia

Bubbler: Hydroponic cuttings floating on small foam pieces in a bowl of bubbling(oxygenated) water . Pump makes obnoxious noise and it has very little room for many cuttings and the water always needs attention.

Krista

Teddahlia Amazing! I cannot wait to dive down a Google wormhole to see images of such a contraption. I had no idea such a machine existed! 🙃

SteveM

Teddahlia Sounds like the perfect birthday gift from a Grandchild? 😀

todgor

I dug up a picture of the Japanese science experiment of merging a blue delphinium gene with a dahlia - frankly it does not seem that much more bluish than the most blue normal bloom

calico20hill

CHecking out my "blue" seedling,Salish Hiro's Welcome against this ...

Bessie

calico20hill I really like the form, as well as the color, of the blue/ purple dahlia! I live in a relatively mild climate, so if you need to export a tuber for safe keeping, I'll pull out all my tricks to preserve the genetic material. I already have ideas how to successfully deal with the long skinny tubers. 😀

Krista

calico20hill Wow what a beautiful color! I do hope this makes it to production, I’d be thrilled to grow this blue’ty in my garden. 💙

Teddahlia

I believe the professor that did the GMO blue dahlia retired and took the specimen with him. He said something like "it is too hot to grow dahlias here and I keep the plant in a friend's greenhouse. " This reminds me of the millions of dollars a company spent to get blue roses. The resulting product was panned for not being blue enough. Carnations are one of the better GM success stories as you can buy purple carnations just about every where. Noni: your flower wins the blue prize!(but to most of us it is more purple than blue, still a whopping success)

calico20hill

I do enjoy it in my own garden and think it is at least as blue as Bluetiful from Swan Island. I do know that Bluetiful was not one of the seed parents as I did not have it the year.I collected this seed.

Juliarugula

calico20hill that is very blue! What a beautiful shade!

I really love it - do you foresee releasing it to the public some day?

calico20hill

Juliarugula I think it is in the box I am sending to Triple Wren to try out. I have to check that box before sending as i packed it in Nov and we have had one cold spell after another where it was unsafe to send it either here or there up near the CAnadian Border. Hiro's Welcome is named for my grandson who was born just a few days before the first bloom. He is a lively 3 yr old now who speaks Japanese almost as well as English. WHich is niteresting becuase his dad is Caucasian and his mama is my (adopted from Korea as an infant) daughter. But our Hiro he is and definitely welcomed! This plant makes long skinny tubers that are a bit tricky to store so we will see, but I love it in my garden. It grows tall.

« Previous Page Next Page »