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

AndreaB

blown_dry What a great name for it… Bracken Faux! I hope it catches on with everyone else, so we all speak the same language.

blown_dry

Or maybe Lackin' Rose. 🙂

Teddahlia

Someone should order it from Elkhorn Gardens. Or perhaps, an Aussie person may be able to supply it.

blown_dry

Teddahlia Elkhorn hasn't had a sale in a few years. Something happened with them, but their site is still up. I would be interested in what people get when they order it from Pleasant Valley. They were really prone to sending misnamed tubers, and I confess I wonder if that was the start of it.

Juliarugula

I’m interested in feedback from more experienced growers regarding my observations about the stock I’ve received from one particular seller.

I’ve purchased probably around 30-40 tubers in the past 2 years from a grower that is very highly rated on Dahlia Addict (lots of reviews, mostly five star with no complaints). However, I’ve been pretty consistently disappointed with the plants from them, specifically that a much larger percentage than usual tend to consistently blow their centers. Obviously, it would make sense for me to not order from them, but I find the discrepancy between my experience and the experiences I read of others curious.

Do you think this could be an issue of west coast grown tubers getting used to Midwest growing condition? Or something specific to their soil/my soil? I gave at least one of them from last year a second chance this year and it didn’t improve, but most of them I have ended up just tossing.

Or do you think this is more likely typical of their stock and a large percentage of reviewers just don’t really care about blown centers (I know I didn’t when I was just starting to grow dahlias)?

MissyWeitzel

Juliarugula one of the varieties I ordered from a seller I generally really like has been open center in a really ugly terrible way all season. I planted 3 tubers and have had zero nice flowers. I have experienced many dahlias looking and performing so much better year two and after in my garden. If I liked the color and plant habit of said dahlia I'd definitely keep it and try again, but nothing was impressed me so it's not making the cut.

I know I talked about this before, but my memory is terrible, so forgive me if it was here. This is an excerpt from "The Farmer's Almanac Vegetable Gardener's Handbook". I'm gonna be one of the old timers that says dahlia tubers also learn and adapt to your growing conditions and improve in the second year - and I think it's a lot more apparent when the place that grew your tuber has a different climate and really different soil.

Have you grown those dahlias more than one year? Does the seller have a really different growing environment?

SteveM

Juliarugula specifically that a much larger percentage than usual tend to consistently blow their centers

Julia, the first thing I would suspect is the shorter day lengths at your latitude compared to the longer days of the northern breeders/vendors.

When I first started growing dahlias it took me a long time to figure out why my dahlias blooms were seldom as deep or show-worthy as the same varieties grown by my father in Montana. It was more of a mystery because it wasn't true of all varieties - some of the dahlias I grew produced blooms as nice as those grown in Montana.

I tried eliminating all possible variables (water, fertilizer, etc.) but it wasn't until I started growing dahlias year-round that I discovered the variable I was looking for was "day length".

Many of the best show/cut varieties I trial do not have centers at my latitude. If you are growing in the South this is something to consider.

The day length necessary for dahlia show/cut quality bloom is something that needs more research. It varies quite a bit from variety to variety.

calico20hill

It makes sense to me that a flower bred in a different climate might not do well in a much warmer, drier one. I pretty much stick with tubers grown i n my NW area for that reason. Of course, I live in the Dahlia Breeding mecca. And what I am working on with my daughter is getting a line of tubers that do well in her Maine climate. This is her first year with more then a few of mine. I am curious how that will work out over several years. I am also not sure how seed collecting might go for her there.

Teddahlia

Since the tendency to go open center is a genetic trait, the seller probably has little to do with it. I would avoid those varieties. You can do a test and determine if the varieties have open centers the second year after being grown in your garden. If they are no longer open center the second year, then the seller must have had something “in the water” or in the soil that affected the plants. Midwest growing conditions can be brutal and open centers are more common in crappy weather. Some of the prettiest dahlias have weak centers and as a breeder you may have to make a decision to release a weak center variety because you may never be able to match it again in your breeding career. Been there done that.
This seedling is pretty especially late in the season. A much better one is being saved in the first year seedlings. Future of this one is unknown.

blown_dry

In my limited experience, most all varieties will have fewer rows of petals when growing conditions are tough. That means the center showing much sooner than in better conditions. However, now I am wondering: are varieties that have "good" centers nearly immune from that? They have so many petal rows that even reduced by half or more, the center is still covered? And then Steve was talking about green centers, which is apparently the opposite issue. Too many petal rows. But in the tougher parts of the season, those varieties would have good centers for him as the stress pushed them back into a desireable number.
I have heard of people before who find they are just not compatible somehow with one seller or another. The stock grows fine for other people, but not them. I have a friend growing dahlias in my same town and everything she gets from Swan Island grows vigorously for her, but they often pout in my garden. I suspect her growing regimen more closely resembles theirs than mine does.

Juliarugula

blown_dry I have heard of people before who find they are just not compatible somehow with one seller or another.

Interesting. I’ve definitely had that experience with hybridizers' varieties - some seem to do amazing in my garden and others don’t seem to like it much. It seems so weird to me that the same would be true of growers…

I don’t know if I buy the “weather stress” argument. Maybe it’s just because I moved to Indiana from Houston, but summer weather here strikes me as pretty ideal. Moderate temps, weekly rain, a nice humidity balance. I mean, we have our hot or dry weeks on occasion, but it seems like everyone does these days. But it is simply different from the west coast, so…

I think Ted’s comments about finicky varieties may be spot on. A lot of the varieties that I’ve had trouble with are harder to find and maybe that’s partly because they are overall less robust varieties, including holding their centers. I do tend to buy harder to find varieties from this seller because, well, they have a lot of them…

Bessie

blown_dry on a similar note, I find for most varieties, cuttings taken from tubers grow a more vigorous plant than the tubers themself. Also, I have a few different microclimates in my yard, and it's a real "eye opener" to see how the same genetic material responds to varied climate and culture.

blown_dry

Juliarugula It seems so weird to me that the same would be true of growers…

I suppose growers will grow what works for them. So any growers collection is going to be those varieties that do well in their growing conditions. Varieties that aren't "picky" will be in anyone's catalog, but perhaps others not so much.

Juliarugula

SteveM I tried eliminating all possible variables (water, fertilizer, etc.) but it wasn't until I started growing dahlias year-round that I discovered the variable I was looking for was "day length".

I hadn’t even considered day length. That could definitely be a factor.

MissyWeitzel If I liked the color and plant habit of said dahlia I'd definitely keep it and try again, but nothing was impressed me so it's not making the cut.

I find it really hard to figure out if I like it when all the flowers are open centered! I did grow one two years in a row, and the centered improved a bit but still often tends to blow.

There is a new one this year that I definitely liked , so maybe I’ll give it another year.

MIDahlias

MissyWeitzel I grew AC ATM last year and every bloom had a hard center. I wasn't going to plant it this year, but one tuber ended up at my mom's house..... beautiful blooms.

Teddahlia

Back in the days of the "Cold War" when the USSR vs. USA things were going on, the Russians always claimed to have the best and the most of everything. They had 3 year plans and always met their crop yield goal.s In reality, we know that it was mostly all propaganda and their crops yields were not good. And one of their "genetic" scientists was sure that plants and animals could have acquired traits and for example if you stressed them or did other things, that these changes would be acquired traits. When I read that someone growing dahlias says that the plant needs to "get used to the growing conditions", I think of the russian geneticist. So, mostly it is fiction that plants need to acclimate. Having said that, if the tubers were grown in poor soil or if it has some infection from the grower , there is a bit of truth here. A dahlia needs to be grown well to be properly evaluated .

MIDahlias

Teddahlia
If I'm understanding what you've written. Its the growing conditions (I do agree with) and not the region (giving a second year to acclimate); why does the Classification Handbook of Dahlias list winners by region and total?

blown_dry

I remember a lady wrote to me who had moved from Oregon to the southeast. She had taken her collection with her but the results were much different. She wanted to know what she could do to have gorgeous dahlias again. I had to tell her that she might not be able to have the same results in a different climate. 😬

MissyWeitzel

Ted comparing my thoughts about dahlia tubers adapting to Russian propaganda in a roundabout way made me nearly spit out my coffee! 😂 I didn't realize I had gotten into tin foil hat wearing territory. Someday maybe I'll find something to prove me right, but most likely I won't. And that's ok too.

Teddahlia

In a small way, the russian was right in that there are sports that occur when plants are irradiated or just from normal cosmic rays. Those sports, if they make the plant better(most probably do not) are changes in genetics that stay with the sported tubers. People enjoy being right for the wrong reasons.

AndreaB

MIDahlias AC ATM was new to us this year. I don’t think we had any hard centers, but then again, it was too tall to see the tops of the blooms! It was a good addition to some of the other jewel tones like BQ Jean and Thomas Edison.

Teddahlia

Differences in sunlight. fertilizer or pH could make a difference when a flower has a propensity for a poor center under certain conditions. I could not grow a Clearview flower successfully as it always had a green center. I saw it at shows winning ribbons.

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