Who wants to look at my dahlias

[geekygardener]

Not sure anyone does but here they are anyway. I love them. My favourite flowers. The cafe au lait make me happy. Something about growing something so big and beautiful makes me feel proud.

What do you all do with your Dahlias in Winter?

Beautiful photos

I bought some me tubers this year and haven’t seen a single leaf.

This is the best thread of the day. 😍

Mine have been really scrawny, tatty and poor this year. Any ideas what I could do to improve? They have looked much better in previous years with larger flowers etc and less scrawny.

Wow those are beautiful 😍 I have tried to grow some for the first time this year and have been googling tips to keep them alive as I do kill a lot unless it’s easy to manage 😳

After the flowering season is over do you need to do anything to then or just leave in the ground until next year? X

@DCorMeand @3KidsPlusDdog I’m lazy so I just cut them down to the soil and leave them in the ground. So far I have had many return the next year so I was happy with that. I did lose a few tubers that had died though. It gets very cold here in the north. This year I have dug up my spring flower tubers. I have planted them in large pots of good soil and they are currently on a shelf outside my garage. I might dig up my dahlia tubers this year to save more if possible. If so I’ll cut them down and put them in soil and pop them in the garage along with my spring flowers. I know people do store them wrapped in newspapers with vermiculite or peat, but I have heard lots have rotted this way as you have to make sure they are completely dry. I have always left mine in the ground or pot, but I am worried this time because we seem to have longer periods of frost now. I think it will be a bit of an experiment to see if leaving them or storing them works best.

When you say tubers do you mean the bulbs?

Beautiful! Well done 🌸🌸

Bloody lovely.

I dig them up (mostly grow in pots which I re-use for spring bulbs) and dry them out for a week or so, then store in boxes in the shed in sawdust. It's a nice dry shed and the boxes have airholes so they don't go soggy. If it's very cold I bring them into the house until the hard frosts have passed.

You could try leaving them in the ground. I have clay soil which gets really waterlogged in winter, so it doesn't work for me.

@SeaDippingandLattes yours are great, beautiful and also gorgeous dog.

@BunnyRuddington@Uncertain111 I have moved mine around a bit before they have flowered. Some I have repotted into bigger pots or pots in different areas that get more/less sun. If I see one looking like it’s struggling, I move it and see if it improves and likes more sun or a less windy area for example. Even different ones of the same type like different conditions I have found. They can be temperamental. They do need direct sunlight each day and won’t flower in full shade.
We are on a hosepipe ban here, so I have watered them with the watering can, and that has been more precise and mostly around the bottom of the stem directly. They do need good drainage too. I moved some of mine into better draining soil, as some were becoming rotten at the roots in my heavy soil. Mine were still looking ok despite being a bit rotten underneath, but were not showing any signs of producing buds. I water mine deeply a couple of times a week, rather than lighter daily watering. This makes sure they are not left in soggy soil as they will then rot.

Did you pinch yours off? If not, once you have a couple of sets of strong true leaves with some small shoots coming out next to the leaves, pinch off the main stem just above the second set of leaves. This forces the plant to use its energy growing more shoots rather than using all its energy on the main stem. This will give you more blooms. I find if I only have the main stem it struggles to bloom. It’s not too late to pinch off now if you need to. If you can see side shoots coming you can still pinch of the main stem, or what I also do is pinch off the bottom few leaves, leaving a couple of upper rows of leaves. This helps the plant put its energy into its flowers rather than energy into producing and maintaining leaves. It also helps with airflow round the plant, preventing rotting or too much moisture. You don’t really want leaves touching the soil making it too moist and rotten round the bottom. You just need to make sure you have enough leaves left for photosynthesis of course. I have seen a real difference in mine since I removed the bottom sets of leaves, they bloomed quickly after that.

I will get a picture tomorrow of ones I didn’t pinch off to show you the difference.

I have clay soil here in the beds so do most of my less hardy flowers in pots now.

They are gorgeous I am envious

I have grown a mixed pack of seeds. Last year I dug a few up but they rotted and the ones I left in the ground survived. I forgot to pinch though. The sunflower snuck in.

Thank you @geekygardener for your tips! 😀

@DCorMetubers and bulbs are different things but essentially do the same thing. The difference is just what they are made up of, but it’s not that important. Don’t worry I was also confused by that when I first started growing them. People make it complicated saying you plant them in different ways but I don’t think that, as long as you plant roots down then so what.

@FakeMewsI love them well done

@FakeMews what is it with these sunflowers ! I was excited to watch my tomatoes getting so big and strong, only for it to turn out to be a stray sunflower that that got in the veg patch. One also turned up randomly in between some bricks we had at the bottom of the garden.

What a lovely thread! Here are mine. I pinch out but planted late this year so only just getting good blooms.

I have good success with Echinacea but don’t do anything special with it so don’t have any tips I’m afraid. I do find though that if it gets crowded out when it’s starting to come through it doesn’t do so well.

@bigdecisionstomake wow amazing. I love the cream with the purple middle.

These are GORGEOUS! I recently bought a dahlia (not sure the exact type) and it’s still in the original pot from Dobbies - do you have any tips for how best to treat it so it has greatest chance of thriving?

These are mine earlier this year.

It's very easy to become addicted to dahlias.
I used to grow a lot of the jewel coloured ones and they flowered right up until first frosts. My front garden was a full of them and one summer l got a lovely card from someone in my street saying "Thanks for brightening up our street".
I only grow the single flat flower type now, the Collette and anemone type as l read much better for the bees to get to, and my taste has changed since first growing them. l only ever grew the strong bold colours, now l am a fan of the softer more natural colours, white and soft yellows. I grow a lot of tall airy floating flowers that sway in breeze now.
The only thing l didn't like about growing dailies was having to lift them all in the winter, it's too cold and wet to leave tubers out where l live, l did attempt to leave some out one winter but they just rotted. It took hours literally lifting them, getting dirt off them, drying them and finding somewhere to store them, then replanting them following spring.
I did love growing them on mass though and they're are lots of YouTube videos from other dahlia lovers, and Halls of Heddon, a company who sell the tubers, showcase their famous dahlia fields.

Biggest pot you have (at least 30cms across), plenty of good quality compost or even manure/soil improver if you can get it. Water when the top inch or two of compost feels dry. Tomato feed is good for encouraging flowering. Deadhead when flowers start to look raggedy to encourage more flowers.

Oh and it needs plenty of sun. You could obvs plant in a sunny spot if you have one, but they like good quality soil.

Beautiful. The more you cut them the more they flower.