Personally, I do not understand what one is supposed to do with a 14 inch flower and purposely grow my flowers to be smaller than that. Yet some people really seem to enjoy this and even assume that it the purpose of dahlia growing. Reply: Here in the Northwest, dinner plate dahlias are not grown nearly as much as in other areas of the USA. Even the people who show flowers do not grow that many dinner plate sized dahlias here. I have seen shows with over 1000 blooms and only 20 or so dinner plate varieties. At the flower markets in the Northwest(like Pike Street Market in Seattle) you will see 20 or more vendors who sell dahlia cut flowers. Many are the show varieties that you disparage as too hard to grow. There also seems to be a vast cultural distance between the Dutch hybridizers who produce lines like Karma, Melody and Allegro, and the dahlia culture in the Northwest, which seems to be centered around producing flowers for show. I really like the Dutch approach, and also think it may leave American growers who are focused on the comparatively small market for show dahlias out of a much bigger market for dahlias as garden plants. Just see what a good job White Flower Farm has done in sorting through all the available cultivars and choosing ones that will look good in a garden. Reply: You mention White Flower Farm but not Swan Island Dahlias which is the largest grower of dahlias in the USA. They grow 45 acres of dahlias. They do not specialize in show dahlias but in dahlias for all purposes. They sell cut flowers to wholesalers and many times that means as many as 1000 bunches in a day. They ship cut flowers all over the USA. Unlike the Dutch growers, they do not patent their new varieties and anyone can sell them after they get some from them. They sell varieties suitable for any garden from 1 foot tall to 6 feet tall and many have dark foliage too. I grow my dahlias for: - color in the perennial garden from late June to early November - cut flowers I like most dahlias but tend to shy away from ones that have been overly bred for show, and think that some of these flowers look like overgrown sunflowers on corn stalks. Reply: The dinner plate dahlias look as you describe. However, as I previously mentioned very few of the dahlias in the Northwest shows are dinner plate varieties. Most show varieties are excellent all around flowers. I think that I am in a minority in this group. I also think that some of the older dahlias have more deeply saturated color and look more elegant in bouquets due to the color and their thinner stems. Reply: Many of the show dahlias are older varieties too. Kidd's Climax dates to before 1940. Newer dahlias are being bred with much more saturated colors than old timers. Kenora Wow is brighter than any old time dahlia. Sorbet is too. Both are easy to grow. There are many other examples. Comments? It would be really interesting if people said what they really thought . . . without upsetting anyone.

Hi prettypetals, this year I direct planted the seeds outdoors in raised beds around the 1st of may, just like you'd plant zinnia or any other annual seeds. I did a few in pots and put them in the garden once they were established. You can start them indoors under lights a few months before your last frost date to get a jump start on them. I collected the seeds myself as explained in a previous post. Heat mats will greatly help your germination time and success indoors, I just bought 3 cell tray/dome/heat mat kits on ebay for under $30. each which I'll be using in february to start some perennials like echinacea cheyenne spirit seeds and more dahlias.

My space is also limited. I grow all of my fruit trees using variations of the "backyard orchard culture" method, which means keeping them compact, branching low, and purning such that I don't have to stand on a ladder to pick fruit or prune. That includes cherries, apples, peaches, plums, and a new attempt at mulberries, as well as figs. The difference for figs is that they have to be pruned in winter or spring (for fall cropping) or after fruiting (for breba cropping). I have a Desert King that I keep as a bush, cutting long branches back, after brebas, to 1 to 2 feet tall, and leaving the longer branches alone. With new growth, it gets to about 6 feet tall and 6 or 8 feet diameter of branch length. In my area Desert King is breba only, so I don't winter prune I have a Petite Negri that is reputed to be dwarf. I prune it back taking about half of the long branches in winter, so I get some breba. The shorter branches I leave on. Unfortunately it fruits late with the main crop and I lose some to freezing (Portland Oregon area). I try to keep it as a bowl shape, with open center for sunshine. It is 9 years old and is 7 feet tall and well branched, gets zillions of small to medium size figs. I have a Lattarula and an Hardy Chicago that are both pruned about the same way as the Petite Negri. I really don't see that Petite Negri more naturally dwarf than Lattarula or Hardy Chicago are but they don't get much chance to grow bigger, I don't let them. The Lattarula is 7 years old and about 6 feet tall, and really came into its own last year, with a few dozen figes spaced out over several weeks (main crop) but only a handful of brebas. The Hardy Chicago has produced when the others did not, but sometimes does not produce when the others do. It is 6 years old and about 6 feet tall. I keep these to a bowl shape. Some years I get ambitious and root prune using a shovel and dig straight down, in a circle about 2 or 3 feet from the trunk. I don't know if that helps. Anyway, I'm no expert. Some years I get good crops and other years I don't. Different varieties give me better crops on different years. But they are all pruned to compact size. Keeping them compact lets me have more trees. I can easily cover them with net to keep birds out. I don't get tons of fruit but usually have stretches of several figs, or several bowls of figs, for weeks on end, because I have varieties that fruit at different times. You might also try planting 3 trees in a hole - if you google on backyard orchard culture there are illustrations. I don't know if that has ever been done with figs - you would be the pioneer. Doing so with other fruits dwarfs the trees and gives you 3 varieties in the space of one. They should have similar vigor for that practice. I hope that's helpful to you. Good luck and happy planting. Daniel

Wow! What a change! This first season will be quite a learning curve for you. Filtered vs unfiltered sun- Depends... I'd plant some in both places to learn what works best in your climate, and in your personal gardening space. Soil can differ in separate locations in a yard, too, so experimenting is a good idea the first year before you expand the dahlia beds. I'm thinking that you are so much closer to the equator that the sun's output might be deceptively 'hotter' in terms of UV and burning, even if the temps aren't way up there... But I don't know. (One Australian grower with extremely hot temps has had success with spraying his dahlias before they bud up with a clay-based sunscreen to keep them from scorching, along with pulse-watering at the roots to maintain a constant level of moisture at the roots. Most growers I know like to water at soil level, using t-tape or leaky hoses. Some use sprinklers early on, but have to set them under the plants when grown to make sure water gets to the roots. In their active growing cycle, dahlias require ample watering on a consistent basis, like tomatoes. Some growers here purposely spray their plants in the morning to assist with pest control, but I have no idea what pests you would be dealing with down there. I'm assuming you have a humid climate? Mildew might be an issue if it is always humid. Hope some of this will help... Please keep us updated on your dahlia adventures! Love to learn what you find works best in Costa Rico!