Dahlia tubers
ihsanhamzah
Posts: 5
in Plants
Hello,
I am planning to plant Dahlias in my garden, perhaps for cut flowers. At the garden centres, they sell individual packets containing ONE Dahlia tuber. As I have never planted one, I would like to know -- at one time, how many flowers on average will be present on a Dahlia bush per tuber?
Just that, if not many flowers are present on a bush at a time, I might plant more tubers... I was hoping if I can harvest 10 - 20 flowers at one time. Perhaps a mixture of red, purple and/or yellow.
Cheers.
0
Posts
you wont have too many flowers on any plant at one time in the first season, but in following years, you'll have a lot more as the plant bulks up.
You can normally find them pretty cheaply as the season goes on as suppliers need to clear stock. Check places like Wilkinsons, pretty cheap to start with and always cut prices heavily as the season goes on.
look out for mulit packs of varieties like Bishop of Llandaff which offer better value. Once you start , you'll be hooked. I'm not at something like 200 plants,but I can always squeeze in another if it takes my fancy.
In the words of Oscar Wilde, " I can resist everything : except temptation"
I grew dahlias from seed this year. Sown in late Feb
They were a short variety, similar to Bishops Children, but I forget the name. About 2.5ft tall. I planted out about 50.
They flowered continuously from july until we got a frost in Nov. Masses of flowers and each plant grew to about 2ft diameter.
Those I really liked I dug up to store, and there were a dozen or more tubers per plant.
A great result, very easy and very cheap
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Buy the biggest, fattest tubers on the stand when you shop. Ignore small shrivelled ones.
I've only had dahlias for 2 years, I got them in a sale on the Sarah Raven website and I grow them in pots because we have clay soil and some parts are chalky too. I don't think mine would survive in the ground because we do get a fair bit of rain. I get about 4-5 flowers per plant (I have 7). I dead head regularly to encourage more flowers and so far I'm pleased with them. The tubers have really bulked up, one clump has split in two so I'm guessing that's how you get more plants. Hoping to add some darker ones (mine are all pink, spiky, sunflower like, bishop like).
gardenmaiden, look out for nuit d'été , chat noir and soulman all really dark reds.
forgot to mention Arabian Night.
Will do Hostafan1