Dahlia Season 2018

[Lou78W]

Did you all read "Garden News" this week? Our little star Che (Cat's) son is featured in Dave Gillam's article. Our own dahlia "Birkenshaw Garden Friends" was mentioned, as was its breeder our late, sorely missed "Tel"

[SueA]

I'll have to see if they've got a one left in the Co-op Lou78W, I only buy G.N. very occasionally now & they only have the odd copy in the shops around here.

[johnjess]

Hi all, my plants are now growing well with lots of buds now . Some have flowered and a few of the blooms have tiny black insects crawling around on them. Any tips on what I could use to get rid of them?
I have been spraying the plants alternately with bug clear and Provado but I'm unsure what I can spray the blooms with.

Any advice anyone could offer?

Thanks

Johnjess

[Lou78W]

Don't think its a good idea to spray the blooms themselves; the insects are probably corn flies (do you live near farmers fields?) and are unsightly rather than dangerous to the blooms (unlike earwigs). Try shaking the flowers gently to dislodge them. The rain will probably disperse them anyway (fingers crossed). Hope this helps.

[johnjess]

Thanks Lou78W ,
I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to spray the blooms so thanks for the reply!
We have had heavy rain today and the temperature has dropped a good bit so hopefully that will clear some of them at least.

The plants look clear of bugs at the moment, it seems some of them decided to take up residence in the buds.

Johnjess

[johndoe]

Well, first of all, I need to apologize for not having posted for so long. I had 5 operations between October and April, so my dahlia season was well stunted, to the point of non existent. I only managed to produce a couple of hundred cuttings late on.

Thanks to a few friends I managed to get one plot up and running just to give me stock for next year, with no plans to show. Over the last couple of years I've slowly been concentrating of growing giant decoratives, so a big slice of my beds had small numbers of lots of varieties of giants.  I've been going to Harrogate for the past 6 years having first been invited by Ian to steward, when I was a total novice!!  So I thought this year I'd be going with no flowers, only to be saved by my raggle taggled giants. I entered the six giant class, and although the Sir Alf Ramsey's were tidy I didn't expect too much. But when I came back into the hall after judging, not only had I won the class, one Sir Alf won best giant dec in show, and the other got runner up.  Blooming hell, what a total shock.  It has really given me a lift and spurred me on to try and do the 12's next year and of course grow them better.

I promise to post more often in the future.

[SueA]

Hope you're fully recovered now johndoe. What fantastic results, that must have cheered you up!

[johndoe]

Thank you Sue. Recovery is about 18 months, but I feel I'm well on the way. The Harrogate result really did give me a big lift. Now I'm eagerly plan my assault on the giant's championship next year!!!

[johnjess]

Good to hear that you are feeling better johndoe. Your fantastic result at Harrogate must have been a great boost as well! Amazing blooms! Congratulations.

Johnjess

[johndoe]

Thanks JJ. How were your dahlias this year, with all the hot weather we had. Mine had a lot of deformed centre's where the buds formed to quick with the heat. Fortunately enough of the giant's survived for me to show at Harrogate.

Covers are now off, made the mistake of leaving them on to long last year, and they got picked up by storm Brian and deposited on someone else's plot upside down!!

[johnjess]

Hi johndoe,
I had a not bad year with some nice blooms.  I had quite a few varieties which needed double stopped and I went wrong somewhere along the line and
my Marys Jomanda and one of my Marston Suzannes grew at 8 & 6 up respectively which meant rather large flowers!!  

I tried Polventon Kristobel and Kiwi Gloria which I really liked, I could  see why they are popular show varieties .  Looking forward to next year already!!

Here's a few of mine,

[lesley]

Lovely show Johnjess

[johndoe]

Blooms look great JJ. You've got good size on Kristobel and the form looks good. Kiwi's are no good for us southern growers sadly. They just don't like the climate down here .

I stopped growing Mary's last year as the stock was breaking down. Irregular growth, some stunted, others 6 to7 feet tall, daisy eyed and all sorts.  But still saw plenty of quality vases at Harrogate, so might think about getting new stock as there's not much out there that can compete with it.    Never grown Suzanne, but have been told its not the easiest variety to get right.

Lovely flowers, well done my friend.

[johnjess]

Thanks both for the kind words. Its good to know my flowers are heading in the right direction!!

I'm currently trying to decide what to grow next year . I have two definitely going, Hayley Jane ( I've decided I'm not really into bi-colour flowers) and Marston Suzanne
( just too tall for where I live though I have had some lovely blooms).

I have four I'm considering. Marston George, Josudi Hercules, Weston Pirate and Ryecroft Zoe.

Too many to choose from on the Halls of Heddon website though!!

[Cat]

Well what a storm that was. We are very luck to have not suffered any damage this time around. Putting in extra glass clips was a great idea after the losses last year. Not having to water is a bonus too! I hope you have all survived as best you can.

We have cut back half our main plot and will cut the rest next weekend. We shall start lifting our tubers the week after depending on the weather. Yes we do lift ours fairly early but that is so Che can have a few days of potential good weather with it being half term rather than being weekend reliant. We have a vague plan in mind for next year. Any stock we don't plan on keeping will be donated to the school again for their summer fair to raise funds for the children.

We have decided to move our singles and collerettes and increase the numbers of these for the pollinators. We will also be moving the large and giants, although we don't grow many of these. We plan to have less varieties in general for showing but more of. Not masses of numbers but 6s or 10s rather than 4s or 6s - I still want to keep Che interested and as we all know variety is the spice of life!

We hope to reduce the numbers we grow in florist buckets and plan to change how we keep our smaller pot tubers but this thought is still in progress.

My OH has decided that we might be able to configure a gravity fed watering system so that is food for thought for the winter months. I have also decided to change how we support the dahlias in our borders so this will be finalised in the next few months.