Snapped-off Dahlia Stalk - Drying Out and Dying - July 2025

On one of our Melina Fleur dahlias out in the sideyard, I noticed a portion of the plant was struggling.  I've observed over the past year-or-so that some of my dahlias have adapated to handling the heat of the day by wilting.  They spring back in the evening and look fine.  I initially...thought that was what was happening here.  Part of the plant was showing some new growth and perhaps it was just wilting to survive the heat.  

This dahlia had been attacked by rabbits, so I figured the new growth was a reaction to that nibbling at the base.   I recently wrapped this dahlia in chicken wire to keep the rabbit pressure down.  Below is a photo showing the entire plant in the chicken wire.  At the left is the 'wilting' part.  Second photo shows a top-down view:

Do you get those giant pumpkin growers on your TikTok FYP?  The guys who set up entire rigs for growing giant pumpkins including shade covers, zip-tie'ing blossoms closed to get the proper pollination, sand underneath for growth-sliding, etc?  If not, you're missing out.  But, in addition to the cast-iron guy, flower farming andvarious pizza stuff, each Summer I get 'giant pumpkin tok'.  

Some of the most engaging parts (for me) is the heartbreak they go through when something goes wrong.  A crack in the pumpkin.  Rot.  Or, the vine - feeding the pumpkin - gets damaged or sick.  They have to cut things up/off and/or smash/cut up the pumpkin mid-growing season.  Tough loss, dude.

That's sort-of how I feel about this situation.  Why?  Becuase I took a closer look and what we're dealing with here isn't sun/heat-related day-time wilting.  We have a stalk problem.  The underside of this whole stalk is gone.  Either rabbit damage or breakage from not being staked-up enough.  Or both.  Or something else that I don't even know about.  

So, I grabbed my pruners and lop'd it off at the base.  When I turn the stalk over, this is what I see:

It is ripped right-open.  There's no-way that this thing could self-repair.  Instead of the plant spending time, energy and resources attempting to keep this part of the plant alive, I cut-my-losses and am hoping the plant redirects its energy (after feeling the threat caused by cutting this whole portion off) into growing more foliage and sending up some flowers.  Time will tell if this one bounces back.