Our guest speaker was Mr. Dwight King, a charming and knowledgeable gentleman who shared his colourful slides and vast experience growing dahlias with us.
Dwight explained the charms of dahlias; they are very colourful and come in a great variety of forms, sizes and colours and some are even perfumed. Size varies from the giant types, which measure over 26cms in diameter, to tiny pompoms of less than 5cms. Types available include water lily, cactus, ball, pompom and anemone.
New small single varieties are being developed for small gardens. Dahlias bloom for 4-5 months and come in every colour, except blue.
As cut flowers, they have a vase life of one week, but they must be plunged into water as soon as they are picked.
They can be grown in any soil, but prefer loam and require good drainage and plenty of mulch. Plant dahlias 70mm apart and stake when planting. Disbranch to 4-5 laterals to increase flower production: when showing disbud to one bud only.
When the dahlia season ends, lift them, split and store in bags with wood shavings.
Dwight uses white 50% shadecloth and picks all blooms prior to a heatwave, to reduce stress on the plants. At night he saturated the beds with grey water and misted his plants, but really intense heat will bake them, and the buds will never open properly, so you need to cut them back. Bent stalks caused by wind can be supported, with split bamboo stakes used as a splint.
Due to Stage 3a water restrictions, Dwight has replaced his sprinklers with a dripper system and harvests grey water for use on the garden.
