every time you cut a lower stem back you'll loose flowers, if you have a reason to avoid leaves touching the soil just trim the leaf. Are you having slug trouble? They tend not to be a problem once the plants are growing well.
Well I did think it may be a way of making it harder for things to crawl up onto the leaves above, but also to leave a nice gap around the bottom of the dahlia 'bush'.
I have some growing in pots, and I'd prefer to have the top of the soil fully exposed rather than the leaves resting on the rim of the pots. It's aesthetics, but I thought it would also help reduce pests is no leaves were near the ground.
Do you mean it'll reduce the number of flowers just on those branches I cut off, or that cutting lower branches affects the flowering of higher branches?
I grew my first dahlia last year in the ground. It flowered very well, though the slugs and snails seemed to really savage the leaves close to the ground. And then there were the vine weevils chewing the petals...
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Is it safe to prune the lower branches off a dahlia plant, so that there are no low-hanging leaves touching the soil?
I know it's safe for tomatoes and roses, but what about dahlias?
every time you cut a lower stem back you'll loose flowers, if you have a reason to avoid leaves touching the soil just trim the leaf. Are you having slug trouble? They tend not to be a problem once the plants are growing well.
Well I did think it may be a way of making it harder for things to crawl up onto the leaves above, but also to leave a nice gap around the bottom of the dahlia 'bush'.
I have some growing in pots, and I'd prefer to have the top of the soil fully exposed rather than the leaves resting on the rim of the pots. It's aesthetics, but I thought it would also help reduce pests is no leaves were near the ground.
Do you mean it'll reduce the number of flowers just on those branches I cut off, or that cutting lower branches affects the flowering of higher branches?
I grew my first dahlia last year in the ground. It flowered very well, though the slugs and snails seemed to really savage the leaves close to the ground. And then there were the vine weevils chewing the petals...