Dahlias 2014 Part 4

Mary, these are Hungarian flamingos, they live in Augusta, ga, just sitting there in my garden. This was, by my request ,my last year B-day present, made in China. Have a good day, you all.....Etelka

We do get blitzed now and then. I don't mind it and love taking photos in the snow. You think my jungle was organized? I loved the lupines but when they die back the sight is not good. We've been to Alaska and loved it.

Etelka - your jungle is admirable and the flamingoes stay nice and cool! I made a big hanging basket with the same sweet potato vine and Felix coleus. The deer left the coleus alone but ate the vines down to nubs. Now it's in safety in the dog's pen and growing well again.

Cute birthday gift, Etelka! If they could scare off the deer I'd invest in them!

Just joined DG and have been looking for gardeners who love dahlias. My collection is tiny (15 varieties) because I'm pretty crazy about my roses. We're having an awful drought so I'm struggling to keep all my beauties happy. So I have a dahlia question. My VooDoo and Lights Out are the exact same color, but different size and growth pattern. How do I find out if one is a precuror to the other?

Welcome to our happy little group. We love dahlias and we have a couple of experts, one of whom I am NOT. lol. But I do grow about 41 different varieties. Sometimes the hybridizer will show what the crosses were that produced the flower but it seems like I see that more in lilies or roses than dahlias. Some are so similar I wonder that they don't just grow a new one which is slightly different then slap a new name on it hoping to catch the eye of some obsessed dahlia gardener. Works for me.

From Swan Island it would appear that Voodoo came first in and is a BBFD, whereas Lights Out came in 2009 and is a MFD. Not sure if you are up on the classifications but the BB (4-6") and M (3-4") indicate size of bloom, the F indicates a Formal form, and the D is for color which is Dark. I found no information for Lights Out on the ADS (American Dahlia Association) classification list and just what I show above for Voodoo.

This message was edited Aug 7, 2014 9:53 AM

Welcome Pat :)

That 'lupine jungle' is beautiful Pirl :) I agree that they do look dumpy after the bloom. I didn't care enough this season and I kind of wanted the volunteers so I didn't cut down the bloom stalks after they were spent.

Hi y'all. I do enjoy dahlias, and have a few, of which I've shown pictures. But my "collection"is so small that there's nothing new to show.! The four of you know so much, collectively, that I just keep reading to learn. Your vast experience and knowledge is a little intimidating to me, though none of you yourselves are.

Actually I only have the two dahlias that over-wintered themselves in the garden, two new Gallery dahlias, and one dahlietta. The two second year ones seem to need some kind of dividing, so I don't think I can pull the same trick this winter. I've never successfully saved a single tuber, so I am nervous. I have no basement and don't know what other space I could use.

Do you have a garage? Anywhere the temps are 45-55 over the winter is ideal. I stored mine in my garage last winter and on warmer days it would go up to 60 but mine pulled through okay.

How you dig them, how you dry them, what you store them in is also important. Conventional wisdom says let the top plant freeze black and leave for another week or so in the ground. Cut off all but about 6" of the stem and (per Dan) cap stem with foil if it is raining alot to prevent water from getting down to the tuber. Dig up and get all the dirt off you can then store for 24 hours upside down in a dry place for a day or so. Get the rest of the dirt off, label and put in vermiculite in bags.

Some wash the tubers before draining but you need to be really careful of over soaking the tuber or they will rot. Some divide in the fall, some in the spring. Depends on how confident you feel in getting tubers with a good neck portion indicative of potential eyes in spring.

Most check the tubers at least once a month, spritz with water if looking dry (wrinkly), Pitch any that are rotting to not contaminate the others.

That's about it. Good luck. Dan? Pearl? comments..

Happy to have you here, Turtles. It all does sound so intricate and demanding. I'll never again try the garage for storage! Too many froze despite my many precautions last winter.

Since you don't have a basement, find the coolest spot in the house and store them there - not near any source of heat.

Foil caps are only needed if the stems are cut back. If you're handling only a few you may want to wait until frost blackens them, give them another week in the ground, lift/shake off soil (I do wash them with the stream of a hose - not soaking), turn upside down for a few days, then store them.

Dividing is beyond me since I can't spot the eyes. I divide when each clump makes it obvious (two stems is the clue).

Put them to rest with a spritz a month if needed, as Mary said.

Definitely pitch any that stink/smell/are soft or are rotting: not hard to spot - your nose will tell you.

Labeling is critical! Better to have two or three labels than none. Mark each bag to be 100% sure. Each dahlia gets a bag of its own. That helps avoid any possible contamination and helps guarantee labels even if you call them by your own description...i.e. low yellow, etc.

Come spring (March to April) bring them out of hibernation and they'll sprout on their own. You can use trays of very lightly dampened soil-less mix and keep them in a sunny spot. You'll see them sprout and you'll be ready for another year of dahlias. I don't know the typical spring temperatures in your area but they can't be planted outside when temperatures are 50 degrees or more.

Overwhelmed yet, Turtles? We all were at one time so try and follow the "suggested" rules and know we're here to help you with any problem you face.

I bleached dipped mine to keep the mold off too and stored them in a sealed ziploc bag to keep the moisture in.

I did so also Jeff (dipping in a bleach once, an anit-fungal the next year, one year both -- belt and suspenders. lol But mine rotted. I tried, like Dan does, to leave the bags open when I saw what was happening. I guess you could blame it on wrong storage media and their being too damp when I put them up.

Some people, like Jeff, are more thorough than others! I used to bleach but stopped one raw November day!

Some places say to leave the bag open for air though air is drying. The choice is our own.

Agreed, Mary. The medium is all important.

My neighbor digs hers, shakes them off and then go into a paper shopping bag immediately and they get stored in a garage cabinet for the winter with once a month spritzing. They get ripped apart in spring if she feels like it. She doesn't stake. She doesn't feed them ever. She doesn't cut off any extra sprouting and she has wonderful red dahlias! Go figure!

Amen.. And look what we go through. Maybe we are overengineering or just maybe she has the ideal ambient temp for her chosen method of storage. Is her cabinet in a heated garage?

It is not a heated garage and the exposure is northwest. Dumb luck!

Now now Arlene... lol

Overwhelmed? Oh yes. I do have a garage but it freezes. I'll have to keep thinking.

Thank you, everybody, for your encouragement though!

I find it so annoying when other people have the best luck with something I try to grow and fail at or something I have to work extra hard for and others do it with ease. Such as life I suppose. The good Lord blesses who he blesses in some areas and it's not for us to know why.

All I know is that I'm going to do the exact same thing I did last year with the exception of ignorantly letting them dry out for 4 days in the garage...lol

...with the accent on "Dumb".

I wonder if an insulated cooler would work for storage, Turtles. They'd still have to be individually packaged and probably be double or triple packaged, maybe with a blanket around them.

It is frustrating, Jeff!

I wonder about that too. As with your basement, getting to my crawl space and bending over to examine bags is not my first choice. But my garage doesn't seem to be quite right either. We have coolers (up to 100 qt) that Damien uses for bringing his fish home in and I could use a couple of the smaller ones to try to keep the temps more even over winter. Then I could keep them out in the garage where I could take them out and put them on the counter to check them. So much easier. On the other hand those cheap styrofoam coolers are just that --- cheap and light to lift. I could wait to summer end and look for the sales even when the stores start dumping them. Great idea Arlene!

Yes, that's a possibility!

Glad I thought of it. I'd still put the styrofoam cooler in a box surrounded by newspapers to insulate it even more. You might want to do a trial and if it's working then retrieve the others and get them all together.

Remember my garage runs around 45-50 F on the floor. No danger of freezing, just a 10 degree (at least) fluctuation in temp. I would probably put a refrig thermometer in the boxes with just the bags to see what sort of temp is running. I have a hi-low thermometer that would tell me the min-max (as soon as I figure out how to regulate it). lol

I am ordering some species gladiolus. I have one kind that I didn't know was species and it has done well over the years and multiplies fast. I think I would keep them in pots and store the pots without removing them, except every few years to break up the multiples. Should be an interesting new sideline.

Because you've got nothing else to do, right Mary?

At those temp's you should be fine. I had the thermometer in the bag that was on a rug and covered with blankets. In the bag were the individual bags of dahlias and the entire conglomeration was against an inside wall of the house. The temperature never fell below 40 and yet they froze. Of course, I wasn't up at midnight or 3 AM to check temperatures then.

I only have two types of gladiolus but love them. You will have a nice experiment.

Welcome to the dahlia forum, Pat! We are a gregarious and chatty little group. Please feel free to add photos or comments.

As far as storage methods, I store mine in the attic and it's not close to the recommended 40-45 degree range. They've done just fine except for this past year when I tried a "neat" new place by an open vent. Many froze and rotted. I won't try that again. If you divide the tubers in the fall, most of the dahlia sites recommend throwing away all tubers not showing an eye. I totally, totally disagree with that. I save all tubers (not the ones with skinny necks) with a piece of the tuber collar attached. In the spring I've been amazed at all the "eyeless" tubers that have started to sprout. I never understood throwing any away in the fall when it's just as easy to toss them in the spring if they don't eye-up. Why the rush? And under no circumstances would I ever seal a plastic bag the tubers are stored in. I can always add a little moisture if required. The idea is to dry the outside while retaining a little moisture INSIDE the tuber. It seems to me a sealed bag is a perfect recipe for rot. They need to breathe.

Actually, I use sandwich- sized baggies with a rubber band to keep water out of the open stalks when I cut them down in the fall. I'm sure the foil would work just as well but the baggies seem easier to me than cutting up pieces of foil.

Please feel free to add anything to this. I only know what has worked for me. Different areas of the country sometime require different storage and growing methods. When you find one that works, don't let anyone talk you into changing. Just remember, if any of us on the forum were "experts" , we would have our own dahlia business. lol

Mary, the bat finally fly over and dropped off my fertilizer. I'll be using it before our next rain, which I believe is forecast for Monday. I can't believe all the buds that have started opening in the past few days. Hopefully, I'll have some photos next week.

Yeah. Life's pretty boring these days for one reason or another. lol. And I decided that I would explore gardening in pots again. More for vegies than flowers (except glads). The squash simply do better as well as my tomatoes. I have iris that I was sent (dwarf German) that have been in pots since I got them last summer. They were the source of the aphid infestation in the garage. Sigh. I couldn't bear to put them outside in the spring when there was still snow on the ground to kill the aphids. Was pretty sure it would kill them also in pots.

So now they are really healthy and I don't know what to do. Aphids lay eggs to make it through the winter and that is all I need to find in the spring again. I could try to dig holes around the yard and buy the pots in dirt. The issue has always been that the tubers rot over winter except (inexplicably) a few that don't. Batik, Fireplace Embers, are two. Will decide in the fall. I have lilies and four peonies coming so have to dig holes for the peonies just in case they come so late the ground is beginning to freeze on top. I keep the soil in the garage.

Dan - I also did well with open bags in the basement. The only reason I even tried the garage was to make it easier to get them outside in spring.

Many buds here as well. Long Island Lil gets the "first dahlia to bloom" award and Jamaica is next. This is the exciting time!

Oh! I was sure Otto's Thrill was a goner because there was no growth. Last night I saw it's about 6" tall. It will probably bloom before some of the others!

Mary, here - after the horrid winter of "Dan and the Snow Shovel", our irises all survived. What conditions would make it different in Alaska? What do other iris growers do in your area?

Well they don't grow TBI that I know of. The nurseries only bring in a very small number and then not all nurseries bother. I don't know what the deal is. I have tried everything. Covered with leaves, dirt, uncovered. I know they are not supposed to be covered but I didn't know what else to try. The ones that have survived are covered with a light layer of dirt; just enough to not see the tuber. I am sure that what part of the garden they are in makes a difference also. The ones that rotted worst were out from snow earlier and I suspect that maybe they rotted because of subsequent cold weather and no protection? The ones that have survived are in a spot that is toward the last to come free of snow. So I will pay attention to that this fall in deciding what to do with the ones in pots.

The Evening Primrose bush need to be moved as it is encroaching on the iris. I also need to spread Fireplace Embers out a little. About every two years as it seems to multiply exponentially. That is a dwarf. I have two others that have survived, though no flowers this year to grow very healthy plants and I am afraid to move them so removing the bush will get them more light and warmth next year.

You might want to search for growers in MN and find out how they hold theirs from year to year.

I've been away for a couple days and I'm catching up on this thread. I have to say that you two have flower beds worthy of Better Homes and Gardens. And those are the nicest "jungles" I've seen.

Mary, I am in awe of your Evening Primrose. I had a couple of those and they had very few flowers and never got very tall. How tall is that one? I think mine were crowded in among too many lilies.

Hi all! Hope you don't mind if I drop in. I'm new to dahlias this year and I have 4. One I received from a garden club event and the only thing they could tell me was they thought it was yellow. So it was a wait and see thing.

Here is the picture of what it grew up to be! I love it! Does anyone have any idea what cultivar it might be? I'm thinking about showing it at our county fair the end of the month. Have to state what it is if I do!!

Welcome, Joyce!

I'm just guessing that it might be Kelvin Floodlight:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/53096/

Are the blooms huge?

Others will add their thoughts, I hope.

Good luck at the fair!

Thanks for the suggestion. It does look like it. It's probably about 7 inches across and I didn't debud. Here is a picture of it today. I'm hoping the side flowers get big and pretty, too.

Hi Joyce. Welcome to the forum!

It would probably help with identification to know the size of the bloom and the plant height. Even then, there are so many in a particular size and color range that it's hard to tell.

It looks a lot like one I grew last year named Penhill Yellow Queen. My blooms were at least 9" and with all the numerous petals they were the heaviest blooms I've ever had. Mine grew a little too tall and after a while I could not longer tie it to the stake. The stems were too weak to hold up the heavy flower and it was a shame to see them bending and breaking.

Dahlias can become very addictive and the ones you grow this year will likely spur you to grow more next year. Good luck with yours and I hope you will post more photos and become a regular on the forum.

Hi Joyce. The more the merrier. We three have been rather pining for some more people as in love with dahlias as we are.

Dan, the primroses are 27" tall and 20" around being constrained by cages. When they were first planted they tended to sprawl and spread which is why I moved them. I put the cages around them so I would remember they weren't weeds. And lo and behold they grew into lovely bushes. Despite not being able to deadhead them (that is all I would be doing) they just keep on blooming. Want some roots? Lord knows I have enough and I will be digging them to move here shortly.

Kelvin FL is a good suggestion, Arlene. Since I grow 4 or 5 of them every year, you would think that would have been the first one I mentioned. lol It's just that at first glance the photo instantly reminded me of Penhill YQ.

Thanks for the offer Mary but mine are still growing. I think they just need more room. I may move them when I start planting iris. I had no idea they were so prolific. Those are beautiful.

Thank you for the nice welcome! I'm smitten for sure with these dahlias. I'll be looking for info from you when it's time to lift them.

The plant that may be Kelvin FL is about 40 inches tall and she's not staked. Had no idea at all what she would look like when I got the tubers.

Do you all start your tubers indoors and then transfer outside after your frost date? The others I got already in bloom from a local nursery so they've been blooming quite awhile.

Here are pictures of the other 3.
Gallery Cobra
Gallery Art Deco
I've misplaced the tag on this one, but it should show up when I dig it.

This message was edited Aug 9, 2014 6:34 PM

Gallery Art is stunning.

I think we all do start the dahlias indoors and transfer outside when it warms up a bit - May to June.

I agree. Gallery Art is gorgeous. All your dahlias appeal to me. Like you colors both blooms and foliage. My dahlia tubers start sending shoots early March. I try to hold off til April 1 laying them in trays to see who sprouts and then as they sprout I pot them up til I can put them outside. I am beginning to think I should do the same with ones I order that arrive in April. I think I would risk less rot rather than potting them up right away. Lot some that way. Some never sprouted.