Dahlias 2013 Season

[Tel]

Some of the dahlia's planted out for seed production, have now starting to bloom.

[scrumpy]

The first of mine are flowering now. The smalls, apart from Ruskin Andrea, could all have finished flowering weeks ago, but what you see in the video...not the best quality.... is what we ended up with after some severe knocking back and stem reduction.
The description of Ryecroft Rebel grown as a med dec should say grown 6 up, on a double stop, on a side bud.

[Moonlight]

Jul 31, 2013 14:53:44 GMT Tel said:

Some of the dahlia's planted out for seed production, have now starting to bloom.

Tel, how do you group your blooms? Do you put ones with particular characteristics such as colour, that you would hope to develop near each other? Or type? Ultimately bees visit which ever blooms they want or do you go out with your paintbrush?

[Moonlight]

Thanks for sharing your video, good luck in the coming show, especially looking forward to seeing more photos of your Pims Moonlight sport.

[Tel]

Aug 1, 2013 23:26:03 GMT Moonlight said:

Jul 31, 2013 14:53:44 GMT Tel said:

Some of the dahlia's planted out for seed production, have now starting to bloom.

Tel, how do you group your blooms? Do you put ones with particular characteristics such as colour, that you would hope to develop near each other? Or type? Ultimately bees visit which ever blooms they want or do you go out with your paintbrush?

They are planted at random, they include small/miniature decs and a few balls. Bees are left to do the pollinating.

[markb]

Starting to get blooms on the dahlias at the allotment. My local show is a week today but although the classes are all three's I am struggling for numbers. The main batches of plants being stopped for the Bank Holiday weekend.

Gave them all a spray of insecticide on Thursday - I seem to have an invasion of leaf hoppers and small green caterpillars.

Today I've been dodging the showers doing some tying in and securing buds. Miniatures seem to be shy to throw breaks this year so I'm going light on the disbudding on these until I see what size they are.

Already looking ahead to next year as I realise I need to cut down on the number of cultivars and up the numbers of each cultivar grown if I am to get enough bloom to enter championship classes/medal classes.

[markb]

That's some fine looking dahlias you have there scrumpy. Best of luck at your shows.

[dcdahlia]

Just back form a week away and can't believe how much they have grown.Gonna have to grow most varieties on wing buds and side buds this year (apart from minatures).

[scrumpy]

I would think that everyone will be in the same boat. Should be a cracking display for you when they finally bloom. Plenty of choice.
Biggest problem for me now is the heavy rain forecast for this week

Could do without it.

[scrumpy]

The day before the show. Considering the battering the smalls have taken from the rain and the plague of thrips s few weeks ago, and the amount of knocking back there are quite a few good ones to choose from.
The mediums and giants under cover aren't too bad.

[Tel]

One of my local shows takes place on Sat 7th Sept. One of the dahlia classes states, 1 vase, 3 blooms dahlia's. Not previously scheduled. 1 cultivar only.

So if I have 3 blooms of these on the day, I will enter them in that class.

Garden Friends.

[derekbrooks]

[derekbrooks]

[derekbrooks]

Today at Southport I met Scrumpy for the first time. I saw that he had won some prizes. In front of the stand two men were talking about dahlias and I asked them if either of them knew him . One of them said "He is standing right here beside you ". The pictures I have just shown you are his dahlias. The first one is for nine small decs and he won a trophy for these. I think the varieties are Senzoe Ursula, Winholme Diane and Rycroft Brenda T (hope I have got them right). The second one is for nine small cactus/semi cactus and he won this as well. The varieties are Ruskin Andrea and Ryecroft Zoe which are the varieties that he sent me and which I won with last Saturday at Edenfield and I showed you pictures of on Derek's diary.

[derekbrooks]

He told me I could show you these pictures because he is staying in Southport till tomorrow