These varieties that are not listed in our catalogue are available for 2010. Availability is as indicated.
Ben Huston (10″ light orange dinnerplate) Sold out.
Black Satin (4″ burgundy) Sold out.
Bonaventure (10″ yellow dinnerplate) Sold out.
Carl Chilson (4″ white)
Chimicum Kate (4″ bright pink ball) Sold out.
Clyde’s Choice (10″ orange dinnerplate) Sold out.
Danjo Doc (4″ – 5″ dark red)
Elsie Huston (9″ bright pink dinnerplate) Sold out.
Ferncliff Cameo (5″ soft pink shades)
Gitts Attention (4″ white)
Gladiator (11″ orange & yellow dinnerplate) Sold out.
Hillcrest Kismet (6″ salmon )
Hy Sockeye (6″ dark red)
Intrigue (4″ coral)
Jessy G (3″ purple ball)
Karma Bon Bini (5″ orange & yellow) Sold out.
Marry Me (6″ soft pink & white)
Mellow Yellow (4″ yellow )
Ooh La La (4″ lavender)
September Morn (6″ pink/orange/yellow) Sold out.
Verda (8″ white ball)
White Polyventon (4″ white)
Who Dun It (6″ white with purple tips) Sold out.
Oooh, I love your site. I’m new to becoming interested in Dahlias. Thanking you in advance! Have a lovely weekend. s.p.
Beautiful site, and very informative! Good Job!
The site is so well set up. Thank you for that and for making me think of summer in the garden, in the depths of winter.
Is it necessary to stake plants with the 8 to 10 inch blooms? Is there any advantage to starting the tubers inside and then placing them out when danger of frost has passed? Thank you.
STARTING TUBERS AHEAD OF PLANTING: If you pot up the tubers about 6 weeks ahead of the frost free date in your area, you will have nice sized plants to plant out when that time comes. This will advance the first blooming date by about five weeks, which is a great thing to do! Dahlias will keep blooming until frost so lengthening the season up front will give you lots more blooms. I suggest you use pots about 6″ or more in size, and line each with two sheets of newspaper, leaving the paper above the pot’s edge. When you plant them out, remove the newspaper keeping the soil ball in tact, causing the least disruption to the root system possible. Plant it, paper and all, so that you have three or so inches of soil above the tuber when in the ground. It need not be that deep in the starter pot, especially if it is a large tuber.
STAKING: I am ‘real estate’ challenged here, so I want my plants to grow tall rather than wide. I always stake my plants, and even prune a little to encourage height. If you have several sprouts from one tuber, it will naturally take a bushier shape. If you reduce it to one strong sprout, it will tend to grow taller. Some of the dinnerplates can get a stalk the size of your wrist, if reduced to one. I usually remove the bottom few leaves once the plant gets to be 18″ or so, so that it continues to grow taller. This helps a little when applying fertilizer as well, but it does allow the soil to dry faster close to the plant. The need to stake also depends on how sheltered from the wind your location is, and how vigilant you are with fertilizer and picking. Extra potassium rich fertilizer will strengthen stems to some degree, but I haven’t found it to work as well as staking. Those big blooms are so heavy. I lose some to wind or rain even when I am constantly tying and wiring. You are best to put in a stake when you plant (one rebar works well), so that you don’t risk piercing the tuber when doing it later. Olly at CHG