Hi, there's certainly plenty of snails around, though I have been trying to keep them at bay. There are a few holes in the leaves, but I don't think it's bad enough to explain the petals falling off so quickly. I think the soil is OK (the dahlia is in the ground), but it doesn't get an awful lot of sunlight, so perhaps too much shade is to blame?
As for feeding, I've sprinkled some general purpose fertiliser around it a few times every few weeks, the last time being a couple of weeks ago. I try to work it into the soil a bit, though not too deeply for fear of disturbing other plants.
Could it just be a dud plant? I did plant two tubers. This one appeared very late and the other never appeared at all, and was in a better spot for sunlight.
I think I may have over-watered the soil initially. So then I took to being more conservative, though it rained solidly last night so the soil is certainly wet now. The leaves are firm and dark green. No wilting or signs of being too dry or diseased.
I thought everything in the second photo looked quite healthy? It's just the petals falling off too quickly.
The fertiliser is Aldi's Growmore, which claims to be NPK 777.
Hi folks, as you can see from my title I am a very keen dahlia grower and have been growing them from seed for several years. At the moment I have about 60, I did have more but ran out of space to store them (in boxes in cupboard under the stairs), so gave lots away. My neighbours 100 year old brick wall collapsed on my flower bed last winter so I have had to replant and until the shrubs mature I have filled the bed with dahlias, I grow mostly singles and have had more bees and butterfly's in the garden than ever before here's a picture.
Well I can't see any signs of earwigs. It seems to be the wind and rain that have made the petals detatch rather than whatever ate the hole in one of the petals, though I can't see why.
A new flower opened yesterday and is fully open now. There are more and more of those closed heads forming all over the plant, so maybe it's just the first few that have gone wrong?
I notice that the heads form in clusters of two or three inbetween two shoots that just end in leaves. Should I leave them alone, or would it be better to cut them off so that the main stalk ends in flower heads rather than the leaves flanking them? I imagine they're drawing nutruients away from the flowers. Removing them would also allow more light to get to the heads.
No, not very exposed. There was one night when it rained heavily and that knocked all the petals off a flower but there were about three previous flowers that fell apart without any rain or wind.
I just went out in the dark for a look and the flower that opened a couple of days ago still has all its petals but seems to be withering and closing slightly. Maybe it's because it's dark or maybe they'll start falling off tomorrow.
There's another head that is just starting to open up, and I saw a weevil sitting on the leaf next to it. It then moved right to the emerging petals on the head. Are these garden pests? I always thought they were like beetles and didn't eat plants.
Thanks for the reply, Verdun. I went out tonight and the head that flowered a few days ago had all the ends of its petals chewed off, and there was a veevil sat right on it. So, caught red handed I squashed it.
I was also overrun with snails and slugs this year, and they were steadily chewing away at the dahlia when it first appeared. Some of them were massive, especially the slugs. I took to going out every couple of nights and rounding up as many as I could. This worled quite well, and I had less of a problem after a couple of weeks. I also tried a beer trap, and that seemed to have worked very well too. However I think I need to put a beer trap every few feet for it to work properly. One morning I went out after not checking it for a couple of days and there was a thick 'layer' of small slugs floating on the top above the beer. I put them all in the compost bin.
I've cut off the dead heads I've noticed. Do these go in the compost bin, or could they be used to grow new dahlias as easily as buying new tubers? I don't have a greenhouse.
Posts
Hi, there's certainly plenty of snails around, though I have been trying to keep them at bay. There are a few holes in the leaves, but I don't think it's bad enough to explain the petals falling off so quickly. I think the soil is OK (the dahlia is in the ground), but it doesn't get an awful lot of sunlight, so perhaps too much shade is to blame?
As for feeding, I've sprinkled some general purpose fertiliser around it a few times every few weeks, the last time being a couple of weeks ago. I try to work it into the soil a bit, though not too deeply for fear of disturbing other plants.
Could it just be a dud plant? I did plant two tubers. This one appeared very late and the other never appeared at all, and was in a better spot for sunlight.
I think I may have over-watered the soil initially. So then I took to being more conservative, though it rained solidly last night so the soil is certainly wet now. The leaves are firm and dark green. No wilting or signs of being too dry or diseased.
I thought everything in the second photo looked quite healthy? It's just the petals falling off too quickly.
The fertiliser is Aldi's Growmore, which claims to be NPK 777.
Hi folks, as you can see from my title I am a very keen dahlia grower and have been growing them from seed for several years. At the moment I have about 60, I did have more but ran out of space to store them (in boxes in cupboard under the stairs), so gave lots away. My neighbours 100 year old brick wall collapsed on my flower bed last winter so I have had to replant and until the shrubs mature I have filled the bed with dahlias, I grow mostly singles and have had more bees and butterfly's in the garden than ever before here's a picture.
Well I can't see any signs of earwigs. It seems to be the wind and rain that have made the petals detatch rather than whatever ate the hole in one of the petals, though I can't see why.
A new flower opened yesterday and is fully open now. There are more and more of those closed heads forming all over the plant, so maybe it's just the first few that have gone wrong?
I notice that the heads form in clusters of two or three inbetween two shoots that just end in leaves. Should I leave them alone, or would it be better to cut them off so that the main stalk ends in flower heads rather than the leaves flanking them? I imagine they're drawing nutruients away from the flowers. Removing them would also allow more light to get to the heads.
No, not very exposed. There was one night when it rained heavily and that knocked all the petals off a flower but there were about three previous flowers that fell apart without any rain or wind.
I just went out in the dark for a look and the flower that opened a couple of days ago still has all its petals but seems to be withering and closing slightly. Maybe it's because it's dark or maybe they'll start falling off tomorrow.
There's another head that is just starting to open up, and I saw a weevil sitting on the leaf next to it. It then moved right to the emerging petals on the head. Are these garden pests? I always thought they were like beetles and didn't eat plants.
Thanks for the reply, Verdun. I went out tonight and the head that flowered a few days ago had all the ends of its petals chewed off, and there was a veevil sat right on it. So, caught red handed I squashed it.
I was also overrun with snails and slugs this year, and they were steadily chewing away at the dahlia when it first appeared. Some of them were massive, especially the slugs. I took to going out every couple of nights and rounding up as many as I could. This worled quite well, and I had less of a problem after a couple of weeks. I also tried a beer trap, and that seemed to have worked very well too. However I think I need to put a beer trap every few feet for it to work properly. One morning I went out after not checking it for a couple of days and there was a thick 'layer' of small slugs floating on the top above the beer. I put them all in the compost bin.
I've cut off the dead heads I've noticed. Do these go in the compost bin, or could they be used to grow new dahlias as easily as buying new tubers? I don't have a greenhouse.