Hello,
I had a question on dahlia planting and thought I would ask the experts! Is there a dahlia hive mind?
We are looking for –
Suggestions on planting
Tricks for making them lower maintenance? Or for weed management
Suggested varieties?
This is for Zone 4 so it may make some things a little more complicated – but ideas from anywhere could be helpful.
Susan Clark:
Here is my 5 cents:
Dahlias are work, and not low maintenance, but they are one of the longest season come and cut again type flowers which makes them worth it. I have many of the varieties that Anna listed, and have had to wait for dahlia sales to be able to purchase them because within 3 minutes of being placed for sale they sell out. Then I have slowly increased my stock by splitting my tubers to obtain more tubers. We grow about 500-750 dahlias a year. Not a ton, but enough that are manageable and make a statement.
I plant washed, single-3 clump tubers in 6 inch pots and crates and then placed them in my basement in February. This begins the “warming up process” so that you can see if they are viable tubers and have eyes.
In the beginning of March, I plant them directly in the soil in our high tunnel, and place low tunnels over the top with agribond. I water them in. Before we had irrigation lines to the tunnels, I carried many watering cans out to do this. I have also placed snow in buckets, let it warm up and then watered the dahlias.
They will begin to grow, I don’t pinch them when I plant like this, they will branch out by themselves by harvesting the first dahlias to bloom low on the plant.
I have had dahlias blooming the first week of July using this method, if I don’t get tired of them they have bloomed until November 15th. For whatever reason, white dahlias in my high tunnels have less insect pressure, they do tend to get powdery mildew mid September. It’s important to water at the soil level.
Weed management: plant them close together about 6-8 inches apart in a 8-10 inch spacing. Once they become larger they shade out the weeds. You have to be diligent to weed when the plants are young.
Once the plants have a few set of leaves we foliage spray with a kelp and fish spray weekly before they grow a bud.
We train our dahlias using a crisscross method with tomato twine and wood stakes. Once at about 10 inches and then 2 feet, and 3 depending on the variety 3 feet.
My favorites are ‘Peaches n’ Cream,’ ‘Diva,’ and ‘Cornell Bronze.’ Designers and the general public don’t care about the name or variety, they just want big showy dahlias or ball forms that look great in arrangements. Grow what appeals to you.
We are trying growing dahlias from seeds that I harvested from my favorite varieties this year. We will grow them in our basement. (We don’t have a greenhouse and have shelves, heat mats and shop lights that work great.) We are planting those today.
On another note: I also don’t plant most of my dahlias until the last week of June to avoid Japanese Beetles. Then they bloom mid August- mid November. We have a lavender u-pick in July and one way to get people interested and coming back in the fall is to have at least 1 long row of dahlias for them to walk by, that is why I start some in the basement.
We also don’t dig all of our dahlias and allow them to overwinter in the high tunnel. I only dig out half of the ones that I don’t want to take a chance with incase something happens to the high tunnel, and to start early in the basement. I experiment with the dahlias a lot. At first I treated them like coveted roots/plants, but as my stock increased, I take a lot of risks.
Anna Meyerhoff
I’ve only grown dahlias for two seasons, in intensely windy zone 5 conditions. I stake mine with bamboo and trellis netting and have them supported by a fence as well. My all -ime favorite is either Cornel or Arabian Night – the unlabeled tubers came to me from an innkeeper in zone 4 Vermont. The blooms are early, beautiful red and very prolific and the plants are sturdy and healthy.
I read a lot of farm blogs and have a list of varieties recommended for cut flower production in colder climates. I have not grown most of these – still slowly expanding my tuber collection!
Arabian Night Cafe au lait Cornel Cornel bronze
Crichton Honey Jowey Winnie Linda’s Baby Maarn
Peaches N Cream Sandra Sweet Love Sweet Nathalie