Just planted my dahlias

of my last summer's survivors that I overwintered none dried out, only one had a rotten bulb.

On the rotten one I cut the bad part of with a kitchen knife, sprinkled the rest with cinnamon and potted it
in the potting soil it overwintered in, no water, part sun in the front garden

got 2 new dahlias for $1.98 each a month ago at Winco Foods. They looked good and sprouting when I planted today. part of my overwinters are sprouted, part had a white dot that looks like a sprout coming. They are in a different spot than last year, better drainage, morning sun. Thanks for all your help and wish me luck

Gypsi

I DO wish you luck. It sounds like you won't need it.

Please post photos when they begin to bloom! Thanks.

Don't know, with this drought we will have to just see. But the advice on how to overwinter, and not to water til they sprout and stuff, and I started early. Last year I planted in june, too late for Texas.

While they do want some water, they do not want to be drowned. If you're a coffee drinker, when you're done for the day you can add water to the top and give that to the dahlia.

It rained a little yesterday but they are in a better drained spot than last year. Now, they are all in the ground, and Tuesday morning's low temp is forecast to be 31 degrees.....oopps It was 80 today. Blanket over them work?

Or a heavy duty box with a brick on top to hold it down.

did the blanket, the wind is so high right now box will be tough to keep there. Nothing is above ground yet.

NO worries at all if they haven't emerged yet. Air temperature and earth temperature fluctuate widely.

ok, hoping this is our last frost. Very sad my truck is down, and my dog who likes to eat paper did me a favor today. That on top of loose bolts costing me at least $1000 for a transmission, I am just hoping my dahlias bloom this year... (I heard the clicking and could not find the problem under the truck, then blew the transmission apart on the highway, well pretty much, we will find out tomorrow how much...) Found part of this on the floor. He loves paper. I yelled at my dog and told him to go outside. I will have to forgive him though, last time it was a check a customer had written me and it was for more $ and I didn't figure it out for 3 months...

The bank will replace the money since you have enough of it left. Our dog loves to chew up tissues from the litter bag in the car and in the truck. What a mess he makes. Now we have to remember to always empty it if he's going to be with us.

Your transmission job sounds expensive. Good luck with that.

I just hope the dahlias make it.

The trouble with my relatively inexpensive and extremely durable 350 transmission is it is now an antique. I got 400,000 miles on the last rebuild but parts are becoming difficult to find. I heard the noise, wish I had investigated before it got this bad. but it will save me so much money to fix it, even if it takes $1000, it's a name your price job for the good shop. The engine under that hood is very good

Good to know on the money, that was the clincher for the tough day.

I wish you dahlias galore and a winning lottery ticket!

Ahh its all good. That truck pays my bills. $900 and she'll be better than before and ready for her glamour job this summer. I'll have it back on Thursday. Compared to $20,000 or MORE to replace her, this is a great deal. Thank you for listening to me whine Pirl. My truck has been my baby for the last 13 years and when she's sick I'm very sad...

I can understand your feelings. I agree the repair is so much better than $20,000. for replacing it.

I still hope you win the lottery!

reckon I better go buy a ticket, might help my odds, lol!

LOL!

My dahlias came up, and I left a hose on a tiny trickle a few feet uphill from them last night, discovered it 10 am today. But it soaked outward over a wide wide area and the ground was bone dry, also I put the dahlias a bit high in the flowerbed, so excess water would drain out of their bed

Prior to that trickling hose the ground was bone dry, hope they are ok Still haven't bought a lottery ticket.

Did you stake them? Even when they aren't the 3.5' to 4' (or more) dahlias, the wind can rip them apart.

I'm still wishing you good luck. I hope they didn't get more water than they needed.

Do you have the names on the dahlias you have?

I planted my Dahlia tubers this past weekend. Since it was my first go at over wintering, I'd say I was pretty darned successful as 4 of 5 clumps survived. A couple of others would had a rotting tuber during the winter but I'd just cut that off and toss it. I read up a few posts that you put cinnamon over the wound from cutting the rotting tuber off. What does that do? I planted them all 4-5" deep and I'm pretty sure we're out of all danger of a frost and certainly out of any freeze danger. They were all sprouting and some had grown nice root systems that I cut in half or so before planting. I also planted the 7 dahlias I bought from Swan Island and used the bone meal as suggested when planting. Their tubers were smaller than I expected but I've never bought dahlias from them before so perhaps my expectations were unreasonable. All of those ones were sprouting though so I think I'm good. I'm excited to start seeing them pop above the soil but it will probably take a few weeks at least.

Despite the extra cold winter this year, so far 7 out of 8 dahlias are up - rah! I have been leaving my tubers in the ground for a few years and bought two more this spring (still in the bag).

Now I am waiting on calla lilies to come up. It looks like the cannas made it through as a few are already up.

Sequoiadendron - you are BRAVE! I go by tomato planting dates and the dahlias won't go outside until mid to late May.

HCMC - all good news!

I don't know, maybe it will be a fail. I just didn't see waiting all that time. We'll see. I'll be planting annuals this weekend. Even if we do get a frost, it won't get down into the soil that bad.

SO very brave!

I get impatient, it's my curse I guess. I'll let you know how it turns out :) I really do appreciate yours and others help in keep these puppies alive all winter.

Reading about planting makes me think I've fallen behind. I haven't even potted any yet. Right now most tubers are in trays and 90% or more are sprouting nicely. I'm still waiting on a couple orders which should be here any day. I'll pot them in a couple days. I hate to start them to soon and have a bunch of tall, wimpy plants. We had frost on June 1st last year so I'm going to be patient. Of course, I could plant the tubers in a couple weeks. They probably wouldn't emerge until late May, which is past our last frost date. One of my aunts in Virginia planted her tubers the first of April. I was a little concerned at first because I think their last frost date is around the first part of May. They haven't had any cold weather since she planted but you never know for sure when Jack Frost will make an appearance.

Jack Frost is not loved by gardeners.

I still think Jeff is very brave to plant so soon and I do wish him the best of luck.

Pirl, what are the hazards if the entire tuber and sprout are several inches below the surface? I could see if there were leaves above but since there is not, what harm could be done by planting them now?

If you are in zone 7 then you should be safe to plant, no?

I'm in 6b but 7 isn't that far away. I don't know, the instructions from Swan Island said that it was planting time if I could be outside and be comfortable not wearing a fleece or jacket. It's been that way for a few weeks now.

I'm just old fashioned and go by the tomato rule. If I wouldn't plant tomatoes now then I wouldn't plant dahlias.

"Supposedly" they want 50 degree soil temperature and my next door neighbor just mentioned she tested the soil and it's still in the 40's.

Dahlias don't want cool soil. That would be my only concern, Jeff.

Well we'll see. I'd plant tomatoes now, if I was interested in vegetable gardening. How many inches down did you friend measure the soil temp?

My neighbor, who never claimed to be a gardener, planted her tubers up here around the middle of May or so. Her theory was the same as yours. We might get cold temps, even a frost but the tubers would be fine. They might be too cool to grow but as soon as they warmed up they took off. Hers were may ahead of mine and much more robust. All mine have sprouted so I am with Arlene on that page. They won't go out til the first week in June when my son comes to help me plant out.

You should be fine in your zone. It would take a heck of a cold spell to damage tubers several inches deep. Not likely this late in the year. The only worry would be if they had poked through the surface. And as Arlene said they won't grow much until the soil warms. The biggest problem I've had when planting early has been rotten tubers. Some years we have had torrential rain during May and June. Until the soil warms and the tubers begin to grow the tiny hair roots they can't absorb water. They lay in the damp soil and oftentimes rot. I have lost as many as 10-15 in some years. A couple times when the rain has persisted, I've dug the tubers up and re-planted after it dried out. One of the best things about starting plants early is they already have roots when you set them out.

What you say makes sense Psudan. I suppose the 3+ inches we've gotten since yesterday aren't doing them any favors. All of the ones I wintered over had the tiny hair like roots so I don't think I'd be as worried about those as the fresh ones from Swan Island. My largest sprouts were about 1.5" but that was only one or two of the 11 I planted. I'm new to Dahlias so if this fails, then lesson learned I suppose.

You can always put some frost protection around them if the weather forecast says it might freeze. Kind of like tomatoes - put a gallon milk jug over them with the bottom cut out as an example.

I guess my soil temp is 50 or above, because after I soaked the whole front flower bed including last year's dahlia spot, I got a surprise. One of last year' s dahlias I missed lifting has just popped up to say hello! What a nice surprise

How cool is that?? Great Gypsi

I've had it happen after a warm winter. Of course, it was the dahlias I didn't like and just left in the ground thinking they'd freeze!

For Texas we had a very cold winter, but that is by Texas standards. I wasn't impressed with any of last year's. The bright multicolored package from Home Depot seemed to be all white, the bright pink and bright yellow from Lowes died of fungus, one wasn't even present in the package, it had melted away, Home Depot bright pink turned out to be pale pink and the purple withered away quickly.... However in this drought I am just grateful for any growth. This overwintered one will probably be pale pink or white...

I hope you have much better luck this year and many more colors!