My Midsummer Dahlia Plan

It’s the end of our Spring bloom season even though it feels like it just started. It’s time to prune our dahlias back for Autumn. If you are new to dahlia growing, you may not be familiar with the idea and for years, neither was I!

First thing we need to do is determine if pruning is right for you. If you live in a climate where you have to dig your dahlias due to freezing soil temperatures in winter- this is not for you. Pruning dahlias mid season is for those who can overwinter tubers in the ground or who live in a climate where you are able to plant in February or maybe even can grow year round. The purpose of a midsummer prune is to give the plants a chance to rejuvenate new growth for better fall blooms and also to eliminate the load of leafy plant material during the extreme heat of mid summer.
If you live in a hot climate but didn’t plant until late April/early May, then there’s no need to do a mid summer prune. If your dahlias haven’t bloomed yet, leave them be.

The timing of the pruning can vary according to where you live. I’m a zone 7b South Carolina. I want my dahlias to begin reblooming around mid to late August. Re-bloom takes from 5-8 weeks usually depending on variety (and climate conditions). So now is a pretty ideal time for me. If you are hotter, you might want to wait a little bit to shift your bloom window a little later when your weather cools.

Here’s My Plan:
1. Remove the netting and any remaining organza bags. We will lift the netting off the beds, roll it up and place it at the end of the row. If we still have any bagged buds, off they come!
2. Inspection: We will visually inspect each row for potential virus. Those plants will be removed and burned. We will also inspect for insect damage that we need to address
3. Cut back. We will use electric hedge trimmers to take the bulk of the material off the plant and then clean up with clippers. We will be cutting back around 2500 plants so hand cutting each plant is not a feasible option. But hand trimming is just fine for your dahlia cutting garden. We will be sanitizing clippers between each variety. Since it’s not practical to do so between each plant, step #2 becomes very important. If you have a number of plants where sanitization can be done between each one, I’d recommend it. This is also a good time to get rid of any weeds that have crept in.
How much to cut back? Well this depends on how old your plant is. For our plants that we overwintered, we cut back pretty low, around 8”. For varieties that we planted early this spring, we will cut back by about half. I’ve found that you need a good strong tuber base under the plant to cut back really hard.
4. Spray. So we will spray most of our plants with Surround. This is a kaolin clay spray that will help prevent bug damage to the plants but most importantly will lower the temperature around the plants and prevent sunburn.
Some of our plants are side planted with crops that are going to flower this Autumn so we can’t use the Surround. We will spray those with organic insecticides according to what pests we noticed during our scouting in step #2.
5. Feed. We will feed the plants with a complete fertilizer (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium). We will go a bit higher on the nitrogen (to push green growth) this round and then future rounds will be higher phosphorus and potassium to push blooms. We will use a granular since the plants are cut back and we will have a lot of soil exposed. We will also put a light foliage fertilizer in our spray mix. The reason for this is that you’ll need rain for the granular to work in and activate. But ideally, it’s a good idea to cut back when you aren’t going to have rain for a few days b/c you are going to end up with a lot of hollow stems during this prune. So giving a foliar spray helps the plants generate new leafy growth to help cover those hollow stems. We will also mix in a fungicide on the plants that don’t get the Surround because we are going into a dry heat wave the next few weeks. Hot and dry is prime conditions for powdery mildew.
6. Re-install your netting. Go ahead and put that netting back up and set it in place. If you do it now, you won’t forget later and end up with floppy dahlias. (or if you forgot to use it earlier in the season, this is your chance to correct the mistake)
7. Water well. This is a time where you really want a drip irrigation system. If you are overhead watering, be careful not to rot your dahlias out. The plants are going to be a little stressed when you have messed with them so much but in the long run will appreciate the love you’ve given them.

It’s important to pay attention to your plants after pruning, the next 2 weeks are crucial. Watch your weather patterns- give them extra water if you are really hot. If you end up in a rainy situation, watch out for rot and fungus. If you give them your attention for this short period, you’ll reap great rewards in the fall.

The Fix- For Now At Least

So we have done some work on fixing our drowning dahlias problem. But will wait until next week to complete it. We are in the middle of a heat wave so I’m waiting until that passes to replant.

We dug the rotted dahlias out of the row this week. Didn’t have to take everything but removed about 35% of it.

It doesn’t take long to see that there are no tuber clumps at the base of these plants. They were completely rotted. We did find a few plants that had some small tuber clumps - my guess is that these were rooted cuttings we planted really early. We will replant those once we improve the drainage. We will add compost and probably some gypsum now and then redo the whole field this fall.

I did find we still had a few cuttings of this variety left so we’ll plant those and just fill in the rest with small clumps of Blizzard tubers. The row will still be all white, we’ll just have to label the plants carefully. It’s no fun to have to fix this mid- season but I’m thankful it’s early enough to fix it!

Time to Fix It!

Unfortunately a few rows of our dahlias haven’t rebounded from the 10+ days of rain we had recently. So it’s fix it time!! I don’t enjoy doing things like this mid season but since it’s early enough in the season, we can fix it and still get a crop for this fall.

Here’s my plan:

The situation is this: I’ve got a row of Ryecroft Jan dahlias (beautiful white ball) that are drooping and giving signs that the tubers are rotting.

We are going to cut back the plants, dig them up. We’ll go through the clumps to see if anything is salvageable. If so, we’ll replant those tubers but most likely I think we are going to have to replace. I’ve got some left over Blizzards so I’ll swap those in.

Before replanting, we will dig out the pathways on either side which will raise the bed up some and then also we will add a few inches of compost on top to raise the level of the bed.

Ideal situation in this scenario would be if I had rooted cuttings available to replant with those. The row has some rooted cuttings we planted this Spring and those plants are faring great! They have more roots available to handle the water and haven’t developed big tuber bases yet.

This pic above was taken in the middle of all the rain and shows the row at it’s worst. The dahlias in the foreground have rebounded but over half the row towards the back is still struggling. We might keep part of the row, I’ll see how things look as we dig. Wish us luck! We’ll definitely be doing some major work in here this winter but need to get a “band-aid” on it for now!

Drowning (in) Dahlias

We’ve had just about every type of weather you could imagine for this time of year! Definitely been on the roller coaster ride recently. Over the past week we’ve had at least 10 inches of rain, kinda lost count after that. We are due for some more through early next week too. Needless to say, we have not been planting tubers this week!

But we have been planting lots of cuttings. We’ve been hopping out in between storms and getting our beds prepped. Permanent raised beds are a big advantage in weather like this- we don’t have to wait for them to dry enough to till. So we’ve just ripped out the previous crop, amended if needed and then replanted!

One thing I love about plants is how much they will teach you if you observe them carefully. Midweek after a lot of heavy rain, I went to our offsite plot which has 3 different fields. Two of the fields look fantastic- new dahlia growth after so much rain is beautiful- so clean and bug free! But the third field is suffering a bit. It’s the oldest and has really good soil nutrient wise but not the same set up regarding drainage. So the plants looked like this as soon as the sun came out:

So many of the tops were flopped over. They’ll rebound but I am definitely seeing some drainage improvements are needed in this field. Below you can see where we had standing water. If the water drains out in 24 hours I don’t worry about it. But over all this field is holding too much water around the roots. The beds in this fiels are about at ground level. They don’t have much raise to them.

In the field next door, there are a few spots that hold water in the pathways but the beds are raised up by 6-8” and it’s making a world of difference.

Most likely we will have to redo the other field this fall. Dig everything out and raise the beds up because even those few inches make all the difference.

But despite the drainage issues, the plants are looking so happy. We cut our first stems this week and are looking at a nice flush a week or so from now. How are your dahlias doing this Spring?

Don’t Rush It, You’ve Got Plenty of Time

I’m writing this post as much for me as for you, my dahlia lovers. Don’t rush it. I’ve heard too many tales of woe recently. Tales of underestimating the weather, rushing seedlings out without fully acclimating them and foregoing growing a strong root system, and forgetting to water.

Life is extra chaotic right now, the weather has been VERY extra this year so it’s definitely a time to slow down and be patient.

I’m very guilty of pushing, pushing, pushing this time of year. Once Mother’s Day passes- it’s go time on the farm. A lot of the spring crops are finished and that means we can start ripping and planting dahlias. But this year has been different. We had a delayed start to our Spring crops so some are still going-which means I have to wait. But as I take a moment to calm my impatient brain, I’m seeing the advantage. Waiting means time to grow larger root systems on my cuttings. I don’t feel like the whole field needs to be flipped at once. We can rip crops out as they finish and replant. This gives us time to do it right and pay attention to the plants as they are settling in to their new home.

Now, you may be thinking: “What does that mean on a practical level?”

For us, it means potting up some of our dahlia cuttings to a larger size since they are going to have to wait to be planted. Making sure all our tubers are eyed up with sprouts. Getting all our irrigation and support systems prepped ahead of time.

We are also preparing beds for high heat planting. We’ve had very little rain this Spring so dry and hot has been the name of the game. High heat planting is a little different. For example, when we plant tubers in high heat - over 85 degrees with no rain in sight- we soak the bed down after planting. This goes against the conventional recommendations for planting dahlias but we find that water helps cool the soil. We aren’t watering the bed everyday but maybe twice a week if we have no rain and our temps are getting over 90. This keeps our tubers from cooking in the dirt.

We are also hand watering our rooted cuttings after planting and every day for 2 weeks after. This ensures they get a good start. Yes, we have irrigation on the beds but their roots don’t reach out to where the water is until they’ve settled in so hand watering ensures the cuttings begin pushing roots into the surrounding soil.

I’ve been sitting on the sidelines during this planting season but it’s given me a new perspective. Not being able to move compost or bend down and plant (due to my sprained knee and ankle) has allowed me to see the bigger picture. It’s given me time to think through our processes. Usually I would just get out there and drive it hard to get everything in the ground. But what I’m seeing is that taking the time to slow down and evaluate is giving me much higher success rates— Who knew, right?
But I know there are some of you like me, who just bulldoze our way through life sometimes. So take a beat, step back, evaluate what’s really working. I promise it’s worth it and this fall the rewards will come back over and over and over again!