Dahlia tuber suppliers: The best, the worst, and the acceptable.
highlandernorth
12 years ago
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Linda's Garden z6 Utah
12 years agoaddicted2dahlias
12 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (13)Well my Dahlias really perked up late in the season, they seem much happier with the cooler wetter weather we've been having this past month. During most of July and August I was really disappointed with them. The plants grew great but the flowers looked awful. Most of the flowers were not opening up fully double as shown in the photos. I have since learned that this is caused by hot dry weather, which is what we usually have here in Virginia in the summer. Grrrr! :( But in mid August, the weather cooled and we got regular rains and now they look fabulous! :) I tried about 15 new varieties this year and the varieties I liked best were: From Swan Island Dahlias: I really liked: Maarn, Victoria Ann, L'Ancresse, and Taboo. I didn't like Bliss at all. I don't think I've seen a fully double blossom on this plant yet. Mystique was a stronger grower and bloomed well but the shade of color didn't impress me. The catalog states that the color is "very difficult to describe" and now I understand what they mean. I will try it again next year, maybe it just needs the right partner for contrast. I grew 5 others from Swan Island but I neglected them somewhat and I will have to reserve judgement on them until next year when I will try them again. -------------- From Walmart: Onesta - at first they looked washed out in the heat, but now in the cool wet weather they are a wonderful shade of deep pink. Kelvin Floodlight - very reliable big yellow dinner plate dahlia. I gave I number of these away to friends just as a single blossom and they loved them! :) Akita - snazzy orange and red explosion. Peaches 'n Cream - underwhelming, often misshapen blossoms, wide color variability. -------------------- My biggest mistake with Dahlias this year was not providing good support. I had too much flopping and branch breaking going on. :( I'm also inclined to give them some part shade, maybe 80% shade cloth, during the hottest part of the summer. Hopefully I will get more fully double blooms and better color saturation if I can find a way to keep them a bit cooler and wetter during mid summer. - Steve...See MoreStarting dahlia tubers in pots.
Comments (14)Hey Alyrics! Nice to see you. I use the baggie thing mostly to verify there's a viable eye, assuring a chance at a plant in your future. You can leave the tuber in the baggie- they will root up and grow nicely if they have an eye, but it can be a little tricky getting them out. If you get growth, you can transplant to a milk carton, a flat, a pot or whatever or cut the baggie open when ready to plant and set it in its nice dahlia nest in the garden or pot. Keep the bag tops open and monitor the moisture. I've lost some to too much and too little moisture in the baggies (which sounds like poor rocky Otto's Thrill there) What is it with you and poor Otto's!??? You could change your name to Otto Slayer, Otto Resuscitator, Otto Dehydrator. LOL I really miss that flower all of a sudden! Deer have never ever taken so much as a leaf off my dahlias and they are unprotected by fences or Scarecrows etc. Moles dig holes, voles and mice follow, as Plantlady taught me, and they turn your tubers into nibbling fastfood, but they have never killed any plant for me. Coyotes are creepy aren't they? They don't hurt dahlias but are creepy. Gophers I don't know about. Stakes: wood, green metal flanged fence posts, rebar, inverted tomato cages or other. I guess for longevity, I'd go with metal. Wood stakes are cheap and have lasted in our wet climate many years, but they do rot and break, sometimes at inconvenient times. Rebar is sturdy but dangerous unless tall and I'm remembering that helpful hint about kids'play balls to put atop them. Thanks poster who said that :) Fence posts are extra sturdy and work really well. I put them a bit further away from the tubers to allow for new tubers to grow close to the flanges that hold the post in the ground. Just a few inches will do. I have since learned: dig first, pull flanged fencepost later. Worked like a charm. Here is an eyeless tuber. It will never produce a plant. There is no eye, I could wait until December for one to form: it's simply not there. Wait til you see the roots. Here are the roots, straight out of the baggie: no eye, no plant. But plenty of wonderful roots going nowhere. I can't help you with planting out in Ohio but the link might lead you to something. Don't be a stranger Alyrics. We'll need a status report on Otto's Thrill as time goes by! Annie Here is a link that might be useful: Ohio Dahlia info...See MoreHow to get the best color out of dahlias?
Comments (5)^^Another thing, when I went to order my tubers online from the western growers last year, I had already looked through the online catalog at the pictures of each flower, which was how I picked the varieties I chose. But when my order arrived, they sent me a physical paper catalog, which was much more convenient. I went through there, and wrote down the varieties I planned on buying this year, based on the catalog pics of the flowers' appearances. But then out of curiosity, I went online a decided to do a Google images search for each variety I had chosen to see how they turned out for the average growers. I was amazed and disappointed at the images I was confronted with from the google images pictures from average growers. I'd say that at least half or more of the varieties I had written down to buy looked bad or terrible in these pictures! The flowers often/usually looked very different from how the catalog pics look. So then I did the same google images search for the varieties I was then growing(which were now flowering) to see how they looked when grown by the average Joe. Once again, many/most of the pictures I saw of those flowers looked anywhere from not-so-good to flat-out-lousy! I was now growing those varieties I was seeing, and mine looked great! Not only that, but most of those varieties had come from the same grower I'd bought mine from(Swan Island). I knew the tubers weren't the problem, because most came from the same source, because they were Swan Island originals. But mine looked good, so I couldnt figure out why many of them looked bad!? It was a mystery...... What I was seeing were flowers that were way too washed out looking in color, or too thin, or the colors weren't what they should have been, or the flowers weren't the right shape or form, or they were sloppy, etc. So it must have been something that these people were doing wrong while growing their dahlias that caused this "phenomenon" to occur. I will be curious for the results I get this year, because 2 of the new varieties I am growing were of the same varieties from Swan Island that had looked lousy in most of the google images pictures(Maarn, Pinelands Princess). So I cant wait to see whether they will come out looking good, or bad. But I'm growing in pots this year, so who knows what is going to happen..... But I'd say to make sure the ph is neutral in your soil, which is one thing I had tested last year at the local cooperative extension service(havent done it this year). Mine was between 6.5 - 6.9 last year, which is ideal. It was a custom soil mix I made from bagged soils. Also, its OK to give a good dose of nitrogen early on the growing life of the plants, but you need to cut back on the nitrogen when nearing bloom time to a low, slow release nitrogen or an organic nitrogen. I really dont know what else couldve caused the bad looking flowers that many people posted online. You'd think that those people wouldve chosen their BEST looking flowers to post, so if those were the best ones they had, I'd hate to see how bad the worst ones were........See MoreBest place to order dahlia tubers for spring
Comments (20)Bad experiences can be caused by misguided expectations, a one-time fluke or a spell of personal problems from the vendor that they may not want to share with customers. Bad experiences can also be the product of constant bad service and products, but it is hard to tell the difference. I had a sales rep that cost me a thousand dollars of potential revenue in my business by not following up on a project adequately, despite many urgent calls from me. Found out later that his mother was on her death bed, and he was at her side while still 'working.' Should I have warned folks away from that business if he hadn't felt comfortable sharing that painful truth? Should a dahlia vendor explain their personal life to every $20-40 customer? Bad experiences happen to everyone, but that shouldn't keep you from reaching out and trying new vendors despite mixed reviews. One vendor was ripped apart in reviews for 'sounding mean,' but in my experience she was a no-nonsense lady that was a wealth of information and very kind. Throw out the reviews and dive in....See Morevikingcraftsman
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