Dahlia Cultivation

Books

 

There are loads of good books on the market to tell you how to grow Dahlia's so I'll not re-invent the wheel.  Three of note are :-

 

 

Dahlias By Phil Damp ISBN 1 85223 889 5

A gardeners guide to growing Dahlias by Gareth Rowlands ISBN 0 71531 599 4

Growing Dahlias for pleasure available from the National Dahlia Society

 

 

Dahlias - General

 

If you want to grow for showing a few as well as cut flowers stick to Small & Miniature Decs, Balls & Cactus or Poms, as these will get away without covers.  They wont need much feeding (GP feed to start - Blood Fish & Bone) High Potash when they are in bud - Tomirite is OK.  40 plants would be ok for a start (more would be better) no more than 4 or 5 varieties (10 of each would be good). & roughly you can expect to spend 30mins per day per 100 plants EVERY DAY

 

 

 

For the future pot tubers are only needed for the poor rooters but make good insurance. Grow 1 variety across a 3-foot bed (6 plants) then a gap of 9" - 12" then the next. Label each pot, let them flower once to make sure they are right and then cut all flowers off.  Feed with ¼ strength Tomirite a couple of times. Lift in to the greenhouse in October, and leave some of the foliage on to help dry the tubers out. Then cut off the tops and store on their sides under the staging.  Large stemmed field tubers can be split into 3 or 4 straight away to save space (dust with flowers of sulphur to prevent fungal rot). Save 2 or 3 tubers minimum of each to ensure plenty of cuttings (that would give about 7 or 8 spares of most varieties for the tuber sales or friends)

 

 

 

To get good sized blooms you need to disbud them. But remember that Dahlias are judged with size rings so better to grow too many on a plant & get smaller blooms than not enough & get them trown out for being too big.

 

 

 

 

Giants 3 up                      Large 4-5 up              Med 6-8 up            Small 8-12

Miniatures all up             Poms all up & double-stop June & July.

 

 

 

 

To improve colour give a foliar feed of chelated trace elements 2 or 3 time before the show.

 

 

 

Seed Sowing.

 

 

 

 

 

To grow your own plants from seed sow them in good quality GP compost in feb/march in the greenhouse.  With the large flowered ones & the poms prick out as soon as the are big enough to handle into 24 cell trays.  When these are full of root pot up into 3" pots then into 6" pots.  Plant out after the last frost.  You can put them fairly close together as any that aren't up to much you can weed out & bin so start of 12-18" apart & go from there.  If you know someone who is a show person or judge get them to have a look at them & if there are any "good" ones in there mark them & take a photo of the flower.

 

 

 

Lift the tuber around October & store as normal then take cuttings off the selected tubers. Label them up (most folks use a number system that is year/number/colour/type

 

For more information try the two books - your local library will have the many of Phil Damps books or come along to one of our shows.