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Showing posts with the label dahlias

Dahlia Tubers @ Home Depot - February 2024

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Last year, I started to learn how to put together cuttings from our garden into countertop arrangements .  I made a number of them from late Summer to Fall that were primarily anchored by the Disneyland Floribunda roses.   By the end of the season, I came the conclusion that I needed to get outside of my foliage-gardening 'comfort zone' and start to add some flowers.    On a late-season whim (sale), I planted a few new (to me) flowering perennials including May Night salvia , coneflowers and some Agastache 'Blue Fortune' to the front IB2DWs beds.   I also pulled the trigger on a small dahlia tuber order from Longfield - where I pre-ordered some Melina Fleur (Decorative) and Cornel Bronze (Pompon) tubers .  My (current) plan is to put those in by the Disneyland Roses on the side of the house.    I also bought some Cut-and-Come-Again Zinnia seeds that I'd like to start inside and move to my containers in the back  - to replicate the look of a  combo of Zinnias and E

Dahlia Tubers Ordered - Milena Fleur and Cornel Bronze Ball - December 2023

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In my 2023 recap post, I included a list of ten 'lessons learned' or takeaways from the year .  They were a mix of looking back and a few looking ahead.  One of them was about flowers.  I wrote that " Flowers continue to be a little bit outside my comfort zone. Change that. I started this Fall, but plenty more room to grow/go. Countertop arrangements need flowers. Try some dahlias, too. " When I said that I 'started', that meant the late-season plantings like the Blue Fortune Agastache , a Pow Wow Wildberry coneflower , a pair of May Night Salvias and some purple foliage Pentstemons (all IB2DWS).    And, I've had a lot of fun with the Disneyland Roses - including in arrangements.   I've also done a little bit of dabbling with Dahlias over the years.  But, I've always treated them as annuals and haven't invested much in the tubers.  I grew Night Queens .  And some orange ones.  And Cactus dahlias, too .     Over the years, I've kept a

Labella Maggiore Dahlia - Planted May 2021

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Part of the newly carved out beds in our backyard - near our patio - are the only real shots we have for a lot of Sun in the back.  As part of the whole transplanting/order of operations stuff, I transplanted a bunch of our peonies up here and left some spots for annuals.  Well, I treat dahlias as annuals - and don't keep the tubers like a good gardener should - so when I found this bicolor dahlia at a good price, I grabbed it and popped it right into the ground.  It is called a "Labella Maggiore rose bicolor dahlia" and it seems to be off to a decent start in the ground: Below are the tags that show that it gets between 18 and 28" tall - so not huge for dahlias.   The colors on this particular variety remind me of the Disneyland Rose colors that we see later this Summer.  I've grown dahlias in the ground before over in this area and I think that will be a nice feature to replicate every year.   I'll keep these wet and then mulch them in shortly.

The Dahlias Are Coming - (And They're NOT Orange!) 2019

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Back in May of this year, I shared my plans to plant some Dahlia tubers directly in the ground in one of our landscape beds along the south property line.  That post is here .   In that post, I described the two varieties - one being a semi-cactus and the other being a dinner plate. Specifically I planted three Big Brother Dinner plate Dahlias . And, I planted three Color Spectacle Semi-Cactus Dahlia s. Please go click those links.  And make sure my eyes aren't fooling me.  They're both orange, right?  Like, totally orange.  The packages of both show orange flowers.  And...I love orange flowers.  Well, I like orange most things.  But, have a special soft-spot for orange flowers.  Now, scroll back to the top of this post.  That's a couple of the Big Brother Dinner plate flowers about to burst open.  And now, check out the photo below.  That's one of the Color Spectacle flowers starting to open up. They're, ummm, not orange.  Right?  Those are tota

Both Orange Dahlias Planted In The Ground

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With the soil temperatures finally getting around 60 degrees in our Zone, I was able to get this year's Dahlia Tubers in the ground.  I planted them here - in the photo - along the south fence line right in front of the Teardown Hydrangea.  The Semi-Cactus ones on the left and the Dinnerplate ones on the right.    Last year, I put a few different types in containers and they did well .  I watered them in and will try to keep an eye on the spot in the next few weeks to hope that we get some growth out of the mulch.

2019 Dahlias - Big Brother and Color Spectacle

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Yesterday, I shared a couple of photos of some Elephant Ear bulbs that I am planning on putting in containers on the patio this Season .  Today, I'm sharing two more sets of bulbs - or in this case..."Tubers" is what they're actually called - for this Season.   Dahlias can be grown in the garden or in containers.  I think the pros put them in the ground/garden and then in Zones like ours (5b), pull them out of the ground in the Fall to store them over Winter.  But...they *can* be grown in containers.  Why do I think that?  Because of this article on the official site of The American Dahlia Society .  It walks you through how to grow them in pots.  (Hint...start them low and gradually add soil on top of them as they shoot up.) I think I'm going to try a little bit of both - putting some of our Dahlias in containers while putting others directly in the landscape.   So far we've bought two varieties of tubers.  First, a Dinnerplate variety called &q

Night Queen Dahlias - In Bloom July 2018

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Back in March, I shared a photo of a set of Night Queen Dahlia tubers that I picked up and planned to put in a container this Spring.  This year, I planted two different varieties of Dahlias including these Firebird Semi Cactus Dahlias that I've shared an update on in early June.   Above you see a photo of the blooms from the Night Queen variety that I took this week.  There are about a dozen or so blooms that have sprung up - some on strong stems - others on thin stems that can't quite handle the weight of these colorful blooms. I posted this same photo earlier this week on my backyard/garden Instagram handle @HornbeamHill . Night queen Dahlia's in bloom. #containergardening A post shared by Hornbeam Hill (@hornbeamhill) on Jul 23, 2018 at 6:36am PDT Nat thinks that we need to have these dahlias in the ground, not in pots next year and that might be right, but I do like having them grace our patio with their beauty, not to mention that our patio ge

Update On Our Semi-Cactus Dahlia - June 2018

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Wowsa.  Look at this beauty!  This is the Vuurvogel Firebird Semi Cactus Dahlia that I planted (indoors at first) all the way back in March .  This bloom, on the very top, is the biggest and most advanced, but there are a handful of others that are following closely behind.  I've kept the pot watered consistently and spent more than a week hardening this off by putting it outside for a few hours during the day and increasing the time outside over the course of two weeks until I finally left it out overnight.   The only concern that I have now is that I might have planted these in too small of a pot.  Nat pointed out recently that as the dahlias have grown, they've consumed most of the space.  And, add to the fact that I planted an elephant ear in the same pot, it all means that there's space issue.  The elephant ear is slowly growing up, but I have to think the dahlia is starving it for air/space/food/water.   I haven't tried (yet!) to pull, dry and store

Update: Dahlias and Elephant Ear (But Maybe Just Dahlias)

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Just a little over a week ago, I posted the first peek of little sprouts of Dahlias and Elephant Ears poking through the soil in a pot that I started in our dining room.  Welp, fast forward a week and we suddenly have a lot of growth from three shoots.  But, I'm pretty sure that I planted four bulbs/tubers.  Three Firebird semi-cactus Dahlias and one Elephant Ear Black Magic .   The three plants that have grown all look alike, so I'm presuming that these are the Dahlias.  But, the Elephant Ear is missing.  Perhaps a little bit of excavation is called for to figure out if the Elephant Ear is, indeed, down there (or if I forgot to plant it!) and/or if something is wrong.  Maybe I planted it too deep? My hunch is that the bulb is still simply dormant - and that's not an uncommon problem based on a quick tour around the Web - and that with time, it will come up. 

Update: Dahlia and Elephant Ear Bulbs Planted and Sprouted

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Back in Mid-March, I posted about some dahlia tubers and Elephant Ear bulbs that I picked up at Menards.  Along with the kids, I ended up planting some of them in this big terracotta pot and got it started early in our dining room (which gets the most southern exposure).  In the photo above, you can see the early shoots emerging from the soil.  This is two Firebird semi-cactus dahlias and one Elephant ear bulb that make up the three plants you see.  As I've said before here on the blog, I've had very little luck with dahlias, so these are hopeful signs for this gardener.  Once we get past the freeze/frost date this Spring, I'll move this pot outside to the back patio so it can get full sunlight.  I'll also add some 'spill' to the pot once the garden centers start to have their annuals to fill out the pot.

Vuurvogel Firebird Semi-Cactus Dahlia Tubers - 2018

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Yesterday, I posted a photo of some "Night Queen" Dahlias that I picked up and planted indoors recently.  Today, I'm sharing a photo of another set of 3 Dahlia tubers that came home with us, too.  This one is called "Vuurvogel" or Firebird Semi-cactus Dahlia. And while the "Night Queen" flowers are small (< 4"), these are much larger (~11") and have petals that are shaped quite differently.  Hence the whole "semi-cactus" thing. What's a semi-cactus dahlia?  Glad you asked.  I asked the same question myself.  And found this answer from Gardeners World : Some of the most spectacular dahlias are cactus and semi-cactus types. With their spiky blooms, they can trace their lineage back to a single surviving plant grown from a crate of tubers imported into the Netherlands in 1872. Cactus and semi-cactus dahlias are some of the most eye-catching dahlias you can grow. Their star-like form means they stand up well to inclemen

Night Queen Dahlia Tubers - 2018

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'Tis the season for Spring bulbs/tubers to go in the ground and as I've done in so many year's past, I'm giving it a go with Dahlias this Spring.  Starting all the way back in 2010 , I've shared my adventures with Dahlia tubers.  I've planted them in pots/planters for our own yard and as gifts.  We've even bought and planted Dahlias of various types directly in the ground out front of our old house.  And we've had limited luck with all of them.  But, still, we persist.  Why?  Because behind Peonies and maybe Allium, Dahlias are right there at the top of Nat's favorite flower list.    These "Night Queen" Dahlia are the small version (not 'Dinner plate') and they're going to get an early start in a big pot inside the house.  I also bought a few other things that I'll stick in the pot together and once it warms up, I'll move the pot outside.  With our patio done and plenty of work to be done on the yard, I'm think

Dahlias Already Popping Up

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It was just two weeks ago that I planted the Dahlia Tubers in one of our planters and when I peeked at them yesterday morning, I saw that some of them are already popping up.  They're hanging on one of the low sections of our fence and are getting a ton of sun.  With all the rains that have come down lately, they've been getting well feed too, it seems. We gave a set of Dahlia tubers to my mother-in-law about the same time so I'm hoping that her's are popping up as quickly as ours have.