2010 Dahlia Diary

  We learn from experience!!  This year The Diary will have the most recent entry at the top.

March 8 . . .With the warm weather we put a foot in the patch and sunk at least twoinches into the dirt.  The snow melt has soaked the gardens beds. Let them dry out; walking in them now will compress the soil and make it less friable and suitable for gardening.

February 25. . . One of our members asked how to start dahlia plants from cuttings.  This technique enables you to grow more than one plant from a single tuber

 I wait until March to start the tubers.  Everything about dahlias speeds up with Spring.  For fun, I would pot up one or two tubers, water lightly and put them in a sunny window.  The eyes should sprout in a week or two.  When two or three pairs of leaves develop cut the stem with a sharp knife or blade just below a leaf node. Fill a  small pot with sand, moisten thoroughly, make a hole in the sand and set in the cutting with a label. Keep away from direct sun for a day or two and water daily--dipping in a rooting hormone is optional.  After about two weeks, you should feel resistance when you tug on the cutting.  Roots have formed!!  I gently lift the cutting with a fork--watch out for the small roots, and transplant in a 4 or 6 inch pot with potting soil.  Thereafter treat normally.

February 20 . . .I guess I could post more pictures of the snow on my dahlia patch.  But they would be redundant.  There is not much to do outside until the last six inches disappears. Many of the commercial growers are posting "sold out" notice on the internet below pictures of their most popular dahlias.  The NCDS will have tubers of many of these dahlias beginning at the April meeting. These tubers have been grown successfully in the area and should perfom well in your gardens.

February 8 . . . There is so much snow in our dahlia patches that the olympic rabbit fence is barely visible.  The only solace is that the tubers still in the ground are well insulated, and are about to receive another !0+" blanket.  An El Nino winter with a southern Low seems to be causing all the snow that is close to a record in our area.

The truth be told, I found of bag of dahlias this fall that I had failed to plant. I put them in a flat and buried them in potting soils.  To my surprise they began to sprout in December. I water the flat periodically and and spray every two weeks with a rotation of insecticides.  One tuber has made a shoot with good growth, the others have modest growth and an orange tint that is a sign of mites. This is an experiment to see if I can keep them alive through the winter.  How I misplaced the bag in the first place remains a mystery.

January 21. . . The ground is still frozen in Falls Church VA.  Hopefully, the clumps that I left in the patch are below the frost line. There has been a lot of discussion about leaving the tubers in the ground over the winter.  This will be a large scale test.  More news when the ground defrosts next month.

The Soil in our area is acidic. The pH is can be as low as 6.4.  About every two years I do a soil  test and apply lime as recommended.  Large garden centers typically provide that service or can recommend a state extension service office. It is hard to collect frozen soil, so wait for the Spring thaw.