Possible headstart attempt with dahlias.

I got my tubers from Accent Dahlias a couple of days ago and was figuring out what I wanted to do with them. Some of them I'm going to attempt to take some cuttings from and make new plants and the others are going to be planted early in these 8" biodegradable nursery pots and then planted outside when the time comes.

My first example shown will be a "Shinkyoku" tuber.

The first thing I did was to pull a bunch of soil from an area I have great conditions for tubers. It's probably about 50/50 soil and sand and worked great for my dahlias last year. I filled up the pot with the soil/sand between 2/3's to 3/4 's of the way.

The next step was I bought a large bag of Black Gold seed starter soil and filled the rest of the pot up to the rim with that. I planted the tuber about 1.5" below the top of the soil and placed a 4' stake in there along with a tag.

Now the plan is to take it outside after it warms up a bit during the day and have it exposed to the sun's sunny goodness while it's warm out and then put it back in the garage where it won't reach freezing temps during the nighttime. Can anyone foresee a problem with them being sideways and not so much near the center. This tuber in particular was pretty long and is pretty close to the edge near the stake. Do you think there could be any possible problems that could arise from the tuber placement or just being in a somewhat small container like that? Any advice is good advice unless you give me bad advice. heh

I also took a cutting from my "Isadora" tuber. Here's the sprout on the tuber.

EDITED TO ADD: Is the part where it's sold white the eye and where it starts to color the stem? I cut right above the white part where there was just the slightest hint of color.

This message was edited Mar 7, 2010 11:12 PM

Here's the cutting in it's new home in some moistened Black Gold seed starter. I was going to use some rooting hormone but after reading the "WARNING" on the label the rooting hormone now scares the crap out of me. I cut just about a dime's width above the eye (well at least I'm guessing the white part was the eye). I've got quite a few tubers sprouting in the buckets I've been storing them in so they get to be test dummies as well now since they're all antsy in the plants to get out and grow.

That cutting in the post above looked like that up until this past week when I got tired of seeing it do nothing on my windowsill. I soaked the whole peat pot in water and threw it in a plastic bag on my office windowsill with some other sprouts I did cuttings of that were showing some signs of progress. That seemed to have done the trick.

I decided to give myself a challenge as well earlier this week. I accidentally broke off a tiny sprout that couldn't have been more than an inch long of my Platinum Blonde tuber. I stuck it in soil and a peat pot, soaked it and it actually looks like it's still growing. Dahlias are amazingly resilient for as much as I complain about taking care of them. They might actually just survive my tending to them!

Here's a Mystery Day, with Platinum Blonde on the bottom right hand and I don't remember what's above it. Somebody's getting a "random dahlia" gift. I've got another bag with a clipping of Little Caesar and Mystery Day.

Know what helps when you post a description of what's in the picture? The picture.

They are resilient for the most part. You've got the touch- I'm telling you! Where's the last photo?

Edit: Photo magically appeared. I hope you get some good shots of Platinum Blonde- that's a nice looking anemone.

This message was edited May 22, 2010 3:38 PM