Time for the dahlia dance!!!!!

They're in, they're in, they're in_____ come on summer, do your stuff. I took the day off yesterday; actually it showered a couple of times. And told myself today was it; no more messing around. Finish the job, spread the newspaper, apply the mulch and dance. I even had a little assistance (well, there for moral support anyway) from dh. He hauled mulch in the skid loader, attached tags to the rebar stakes and "kept me at it". All are at least 6 inches above ground__except one. It's just coming alive. Amost threw it but discovered it was from a 'dahlia friend' so I would plant the poor thing. But if in 2 weeks it doesn't show more promise I think a newspaper and more mulch will attack it pronto.

Half of my tubers were potted up in straight peat and I found two suffering from to much water. Well, with continual rain why wouldn't they be extra wet!!! May have to revise my start mix another year.

Congrats Jean, I have about 10 left to go and with any luck , tomorrow I will join you in the dance!

10 more to go Nadine! - I got you on the run.LOL

I ordered 11 more today! I'll do the happy dance about Mid June at this rate LOL. Had to have em.

Way to go Jean, Willow, and Al. I can't wait to see everyone's harvest: new ones, and old favorites.

I took five I had set aside for dd and got to dance with her after I helped her plant them last evening. Isn't it a good feeling to have them all in the ground! (No I don't have to much time___just enjoying every minute of every hour to the fullest!!!)

So sing along as you dance the dance___
to the tune of "Let it Snow"

Oh the weather it can be frightful,
Right now the air outside's delightful,
And since there's nothing more to hoe,
Dahlias grow, Dahlias Grow, DALHIAS GROW!!!

Edited out a comma___ and I was a teacher??? I know! It was a typo!!

This message was edited Jun 7, 2007 5:43 AM

Not a one of mine are in the ground yet....shame on me...someone give me a kick in the rear to get jump started...

Another question from a newcomer, to my fellow Zone 5 Dahlia lovers (or anybody else). When you say you are just now planting (or just planted) are you talking about putting "bare" tubers in the ground or transplanting pre-started "sprouts" (pardon my lack of technical lingo) from pots started indoors? If pre-started indoors, when did you start them? Thanks!

BDale, mine were potted up aroundthe 20 of March. ( I'm on the line between zone 4 and 5) A few waited a week or so as I arranged and got more grow lights hung. They went outside into coldframes about when I plant the first of the vegi garden. I prefer nobody leaves the warm basement unless growth is showing. Once they make the coldframe the work is mostly over. I have thrown a rug over the frames when a temp. in the teens was predicted, but didn't have to at all this year. Open the lid when a light shower is in progress, stop the shower when they've had enough. Lids left open unless conditions merit closing after May 1.

Some of us have unheated sunny porches instead of coldframes. Some leave them under growlights and a few lucky folks have greenhouses!! They are quite adaptable to many situations. I also have a couple of pallets on wheels which work well. You can wheel them in the garage if conditions merit it.

Jamlover,
Great info, thanks so much. I've already got a better idea of how to do this next year, but still hopeful for the present season even though I suspect ours will be late bloomers.

By the way. ..love the lyrics and I'm doing the dance. (Um...hopefully there is no chance Dave's Garden will begin downloading videos, is there? I don't think the world is ready for my version of the Dahlia dance).
LOL

BDale, I took my first dahli photos middle of July last year and we didn't freeze off until the middle of Oct so it's a good long season of bloom. The smaller blooms will bloom earlier, some of the AA size bloom the least and take the longest to come to bloom. Those are the ones that the early "pot start" gets the drop on.

I usually start mine inside in pots around 4/1 - 4/7 - of course I always get flowers in June Jean ;)~ Well on track for this year. Anyway - starting them 4-6 weeks before planting date seems to help.

Yes, rub it in Al. But I may have a bloom in June this year. Extase has a bud already. Actually can count 3 already on it. Hadn't even noticed it but when it went in along my new blue fence___which my SIL told me should be white. I informed him I was different so my fence deserved to be different to.

Here's the evidence Al. I'm out to take a photo if I don't get blown off the yard!! Notice the tip of a board on my blue fence___the one's that different!! (Proof that it's a 2007 photo.

So put that in your Wisconsin pipe and smoke it!!! Now show me your buds Al, come on, fess up! Let's see them. Got any yet Al?

My extase is pretty small yet - not that it gets big though


I posted one in the other thread already, but this one is for Pooch - Yvonne

has to be about the only dahlia I can recognize by the leaves - Smokey. No buds - just showing how it looks

your extase is easily open in 2 weeks Jean

This one is getting there, supposed to be Night Queen - real short. This plant was pretty tall last year.

Is Yvonne___that was my sis's best friend___ a larger plant than Extase? Really got a good green color, Al.

What color is Night Queen? Can't remember that one.

Yvonne was 5' the last time I had it. Night Queen is a dark red - Pooch tracked it down for me after I lost mine.

My Night Queen! grrrrr. LOL (I sent Al the only good tuber of it LOL.) You have Smokey, Al! I remember Smokey's struggle to survive here last year. Not meant to be, though.

I can't believe you have buds without greenhouses and the like. Very well done there folks.

Yvonne was always a demur 3 ft here. Nice pink waterlily, slower than molasses. Al, you prove me wrong and maybe I'll try it again, okay?

Well, I still have 5 left to plant but it's been 90 degrees here yesterday and today. Got 5 in yesterday but today was just to much for me and my shovel. A lot of mine were in pots and maybe of 1/4 were just tubers, late comers in the mail. I like to see them flower sooner so I pot a lot of them up as Al and Jean do.

We are in the same zone Al, so I think I have you beat.... get out that pipe!

This is Kasasgi not quite opened but give him a couple more days........

Couple days huh? Lot of things could happen in a couple days, like those flowers could be cut off in the night or I could go buy one flowering already.LOL

Here's a picture of one of my beds and as you can see some are plants and others have not broken though the ground. Been planting for about 3 weeks.

LOL, Al

Yep, willow, he would, just to be the first. However, it looks like you get the prize this season for zone 5. I found one today in the laundry room with a 3 inch sprout. Considering whether to dig one more hole or pretend I did but pitch it instead. But as Pooch said a dahlia petal is a terrible thing to waste, so I may dig one more hole tomorrow morning just for 'old times sake'

Edited to say your bed layout looks wonderful Willow. Is that a little white potting shed? Some folks are so creative!! Show us a shot again when all is in bloom!!

Hey I've got a Kasasgi somewhere. No, on second thought mine started with an N. Kind of like the name of that town in Japan we bombed in WWII.

But I'd better be nice to Al since I am rather falling for the waterlily form!!

This message was edited Jun 9, 2007 5:39 AM

Looks nice Nadine.

Waterlilies huh? I don't think I have any of those ;)

Playing the violin for Al, and LOL, his memory is failing him. Hey, just wait 10 or 20 years and you will have a better excuse. And with Nadine beating him to the draw this spring, better play an extra refrain. Here's a reminder from 2006. Geeze___it seems odd to look back a year. (But folks, he sure can raise the waterlilies)

BDale, Don't worry about your version of the dance! I hear DG is close to adding video but it's not here yet. Besides if you enjoy dancing the dance, who cares what it looks like. After a certain age, like some of the others on this forum may tell you, you don't care much how your actions impress or irritate others!! It's just happy movement to encourage our favorite plants to grow and bloom!!

Hey Jamlover,

Thanks for the encouragement and, indeed, I agree about the "who cares" part as well! By the way, so far several of our Dahlias have emerged so the dancing must be helpful. (Funny, I haven't read about the Dahlia dance in any of the other instructional materials I've consulted. How could they overlook this crucial part of the process??)

Ho, ho, hoe___ yes I finally am getting around to mulching my direct plant tubers today and guess what? One of the Karmas is in early bud!! And this is not one of those early minny-halfpints. This will eventually be a 4' plant. Right now it's about a foot. Don't know what got into it. (Probably the fear of being shamed by a Wisconsin gardener who is already boasting of buds)

It appears I have two 'no-shows' from those direct plant subjects. I was doing them on May 6, watching hubby plant his corn nice and close over on the hillside as I worked. (Got to get a good crop of rootworm beatles on the way you know to keep the summer interesting. Anyway, I plan to keep good records of the progress of these compared to all my potted tubers. My grandmother always planted her cannas and dahlias sometime near the last 10 days of April. Never started any of them earlier. Here they take about 3 weeks to show their face above ground and all is usually settled weather-wise by then. Well, here is part of stake city 2007, finally ready for mulch.

But here's stake city on the other side of the driveway. Now this I like. All mulch in place just waiting for 'the lucky old sun who has nothin to do but roam around heaven all day (and shine on our dahlias most days). Wouldn't we gardeners love that___nothing to do I mean. OK Uncle G. was a music professor during his lifetime and I heard a lot of great old classics crooned in his deep baritone voice. Oh, to be a kid again.

My three blue spruce in this bed__you only see one of them__ keep crowding me out of more plant space. Got some daylilies that use to be fine, but I'm going to have to move them out this year to be able to see the blooms.

Thanks Jean, that is a potting shed. Actually when I bought this house there was an above ground pool on the far side of the shed. They used as a pool house. I think it took me about a week to change that into a proper potting shed which is so handy and perfect location to the entire back yard. My yard has a lot of sand do to that pool and apparently there was another one in the middle of the yard by one of the previous owners. Saying this very quietly so Pooch can't hear me, I have very few rocks in my gardens.

My view from the patio

Yes, I can feel her pain just a little. As a kid you would hire out for the day to walk the fields and pick up rock in the spring before it was planted. Even allowed a day out of country school for this money making project!!! What a quarter couldn't make happen then!! LOL The farmer pulled what was called a stone bolt? behind the horse to roll the rocks onto; but these were in the 5 pound and up size. The fun happened when someone spotted a 2 footer over half buried and everyone dug to free it, then pushed, with the farmer's help, to get it loaded!! In those days 'work' was made into fun!!

Course then we advanced in the early fifties to taking a tractor with a loader bucket along to pick up. Just a cinch, get it full and drive to the nearest fench-row and dump your happy finds. (I've scavengered many a rock pile along a field for a pretty rock, but most are just rocks)

WOW Nadine, your yard looks so beautiful and restful. Mine always has "farm sounds" ___both natural and man-made to make it seem like a spot of continual activity. I'm jealous!! And what a great potting shed. Mine is the old garage that was in to good of shape to be demolished when we built our home in the 70's and now no wind will take it___everything else could go___but it will stand!! So, when you have a lemon, you make lemonade, although the size is a little much for potting!! Yours is perfect!!

Shot taken standing on my front porch. Have considered having the cement driveway have an accident along the edge___caused by a maul__but he's not quit that mellow yet; I'd grow morning glories on this side. Nature seems to be thinking in the same vein 'cause the edge is breaking up a bit along the old building but hunt as I did, I can't find my Grampa Ott morning glory seed this spring.

What soothing and lovely vistas are your gardens ladies! Love that pathway Willow, and I plugged my ears on the part about 'few rocks.' LOL. When we first moved here, our gardening neighbors said "if you want to plant anything here, better get a pickaxe." They weren't kidding. I'm just glad to have any tillable space at all.

Jam, I can't tell you how many forays we made as youngsters raiding those very rock piles at various farms as you mentioned. They were dutifully loaded up and hauled back for my mom's garden pathways and borders in town. The most memorable trip was when we had a huge old Pontiac Bonneville trunk loaded with about 1/4 ton of field rocks and then came the flat tire......LOL!! Had to unload those !#%#@% rocks to get to the spare tire!

Here is a red one I have had for a couple of years or so...it is not too tall and is very pretty!

JanetS, your blooms are way ahead of us. Nice to see them.