When to plant dahlias? This is an important question, because dahlias are a popular family of Asteraceae or Asteraceae. The above-ground part dies off every year after flowering.

In order for dahlias to always delight you with their bright colors, you need to know the rules for planting and caring for the plant. When to plant dahlias? We'll tell you in the article.

The stems of dahlias (lat. Dáhlia) are hollow, reaching a height of 40 to 200 cm. The foliage is lush, the leaves are large.

Fleshy roots form tuberous thickenings at the base of the rhizome. The flowers are collected in large inflorescences in the shape of baskets. At their edges there are reed-shaped flowers, in the middle there are tubular bisexual flowers.

The most common methods of reproduction plants are cuttings and dividing tubers after flowering.

Propagation by dahlia seeds is used for... Such plants are distinguished by single flowers and a collar-shaped flowering pattern. When is the best time to plant dahlias, in what month can they be planted? We'll tell you further.

Growing conditions

Dahlias love a well-sunny and ventilated place and bloom for several months, starting in May and ending in late October. Varieties of dahlias are distinguished by flowering time.

Highlight:

• early varieties that begin to bloom at the very beginning of May;
• medium varieties, blooming from mid-July;
• late dahlias blooming in early August.

With a lack of light, excessive shoot growth occurs to the detriment of flowering. The optimal temperature for growing is 15-20°C.

Dahlias successfully tolerate both heat and temperature drops to 0°C. In cold climates, tubers do not overwinter; they need to be dug up and stored in a cool place. And in the spring, plant it again in a permanent place in the garden.

How to prepare the soil

They decorate flower beds, border lines and flower beds. And even a novice gardener can grow them if he knows when to plant these unpretentious plants and what weather can harm them.

Dahlias are characterized as unpretentious ornamental plants; they are easy to grow in the garden at home. But despite this, you should choose a suitable place on the site. To enjoy the results of your labor, it is advised to properly prepare the tubers. The soil is fertilized with nutrients necessary for the full growth and development of the plant. When planting in open ground, it is important to consider the distance between seedlings.

Main characteristics

Dahlias have leaves arranged in pairs on the stem. The height of the decorative crop reaches up to 2.5 meters. The plant is characterized by a well-developed root system. In perennial varieties, the tubers are fleshy and thickened. Stems can be smooth or rough. The flowers branch heavily. Varieties with pinnate and drooping leaves are known. Dahlias are distinguished by the presence of basket-shaped inflorescences. There are species with brown-red or golden-yellow central flowers of the reed type. The above-ground part of the plant dies down to the root collar.

How to prepare tubers for planting

The main thing in the planting process is the preparation of tubers. Every autumn they are dug up and stored in the underground or cellar. But before that, they should be dried so that they do not rot over the winter.

If some of the parts of the tubers are rotten, they are removed and the bulbs are cleaned of dried lumps of earth. Those that are damaged should be thrown away so as not to expose others to the risk of infection. The damaged parts are separated with a knife. The cut area is treated with a weak solution of potassium permanganate or sprinkled with charcoal and ground into powder. The node is divided into parts. Each part consists of two tubers with sprouts. This is done in order to obtain a plant with a large supply of vitality, producing many buds. An increase in tubers will lead to the crushing of shoots, which will subsequently interfere with growth, which will affect the quality of the inflorescences.

Landing

Proper planting of dahlia

To begin with, prepare dahlias for seedlings. Early and medium varieties are planted already in mid-March. Specific deadlines are revealed in detailgardener's lunar calendar. In 2018, the following days are favorable times for planting:

• for annual dahlias: March 4-8, March 13-15, March 18-26, March 28-30;
• for perennials: March 4-8, March 10-13, March 22-24, March 28-30;

The container is filled with balanced soil. It can be prepared at home, or you can purchase ready-made soil. It is better to buy ready-made, since such planting material contains all the nutrients and useful microelements.

The soil at home should be disinfected. There are several methods. To destroy harmful bacteria, you should freeze the soil or bake it in the oven at 150-180 degrees. The soil is also fried in a frying pan over an open fire. Then the planting material is left for two weeks at room temperature to restore beneficial microelements. The soil should be soft and loose. Planting seedlings has its advantages. You can count on early flowering, whereas when planting seeds directly into the ground, the flowering period begins later. Having planted the plant in a pot, leave it until it adapts and sprouts. Containers are placed on a windowsill or in a greenhouse.

You can plant dahlias in the spring immediately in open ground, but only after the frosts have subsided. This applies to medium and late varieties. If you plant them earlier, the tubers may freeze. Planted bulbs can be covered in the event of unexpected cold weather with any warm material, straw or hay.

As soon as warm weather sets in, that is, the temperature begins to stay within 10-15 degrees Celsius, then the time comes for planting in open ground.

Dig up the soil and add compost or rotted manure to it. The soil is loosened with a pitchfork, and bone meal is added to it. To protect flowers from wireworms and onion root mites, granular insecticides are added to the soil: copper sulfate solution, potassium permanganate. Formalin can be used if roses or fruit crops that have suffered from any diseases were grown in this place before dahlias.

To transplant seedlings or plant dahlias with tubers, small holes are dug into the ground at a distance of a meter and a half from each other. The distance is selected depending on the expected growth of the plant. For short people, 40-50 centimeters is suitable. The depth of the hole should be no more than 10 centimeters. You shouldn't go too deep. Dry soil is watered before planting seedlings. Place the tubers horizontally so that the dahlia can develop a large root system. When planting, the roots are completely immersed in the holes. Space is left in the hole for applying fertilizer. A little rotted manure is placed at the bottom, but you should be careful not to burn the roots. Fill the hole, leaving the shoots a few centimeters above the surface of the earth. If the seedlings are tall, then install a support when planting; it can be left stuck in the hole, since after a month or two it will not be possible to install the support without damaging the rhizomes of the flower. The voluminous bush is supported with several sticks.

Gardeners in the Middle Zone, as well as in the Urals and Moscow region, plant dahlias in the Leningrad region in May. In Siberia, this deadline may fall into June. In the southern regions, work is being shifted a month earlier, that is, to April.

An important condition for high-quality flowering is the disassembly of large nests. The fact is that old, large, tightly woven flower tubers, as a rule, do not bloom or bloom weakly; and storing them in winter is riskier - they die. If you can’t easily separate it with your hands, then cut each nest with a sharp knife, following the rule: each section should contain a part of the root collar and a couple of eyes. Cover the sections with brilliant green or sprinkle generously with ash.

If there are dried cones, then soak them overnight, before planting, in water, or better yet, in a solution of Fitosporin.

It happens that when you arrive at the dacha for a short time, you only have time to sort out the root tubers. Then another option for preparing plants for planting will suit you. Bring the tubers into a cold greenhouse, cover one of the empty beds (or part of the path) with black spunbond and place the dahlias on it. Sprinkle them with wet sawdust, sand or peat mixture and leave it like that for two to three weeks. On your next visit, you can immediately begin boarding.

Care

If the weather is not very dry, then after planting I do not water the flower garden with dahlias for a couple of weeks, until the first shoots. The photo shows how the dahlia has grown in half a month.

I combine the first watering with fertilizing with urea (urea) - 1 tbsp. l./ 10 l. water. After another couple of weeks I feed with potassium humate 2 tbsp. l./10 l. water. At the beginning of August I do the last feeding with phosphorus-potassium fertilizer.

Note: When feeding, do not use large amounts of nitrogen-containing fertilizers, otherwise the dahlias will “go away” into leaves.

Dahlias need regular watering, but only if the summer is dry.

I tie the grown flowers with a loose loop so that the twine does not cut into the stem as it thickens. Sometimes I install it on the entire bush.

Under the plant, I periodically mulch the soil with mowed grass and compost, and by the end of July I cover it with peat. Once again I add peat to a height of 15-20 cm in early September before the possible first light frosts.

Formation of dahlias

If you want to get a beautiful and lush bush, you will have to form tall dahlias. I admit that I don’t always have time to do everything according to the rules, but even a little shaping will give results, and a large number of buds will have time to open and delight with abundant flowering. Low-growing, dwarf and small-flowered varieties do not require molding.

Author of the article: Love

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We should immediately warn you: this flighty beauty is not a homebody!

It is categorically not recommended to grow it every year in the same place, and its “craving for changing places” should be respected by shifting the planting location to the size of its previous area. True, after 3 years the dahlia will allow you to return to your previous place of residence. But with a condition!

So that while he wanders around the site from place to place, asters do not live in his previous bed. Although he himself belongs to the Aster family. He doesn't like them, what can you do! A typical case of enmity with relatives.

The name of the flower was given in 1803 by the botanist Karl Wildenov, who thus, paying tribute to the teacher, immortalized the name of the St. Petersburg academician, botanist and ethnographer Johann Gottlieb Georgi. Although the dahlia was known in Europe much earlier, from the end of the 17th century, under the name “Dahlia”.

The tubers of the plant were brought to Spain by the captain of one of the ships coming from Mexico. And they were taken on board as food - following the example of the Quechua Aztecs, in whose possessions this flower grew. But the taste of the tuber did not impress the sailors.

But the flower, whose color image the captain had, was appreciated by the court gardener and the director of the royal botanical garden: the roots of the South American were within the Escurial, where members of the ruling dynasty quickly and appreciated the beauty of the flower.

Although for modern tastes the inflorescences were unassuming, and looked more like a multi-colored chamomile.

But breeding work to create new varieties began immediately.

In Russia, the dahlia became widespread in the 18th century, first in noble estates, where by the time of the first exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1844, about two hundred varieties were already grown.

Over time, the main drawback of the dahlia was corrected - a weak peduncle, and now the South American beauty delights its fans in long-standing bouquets.

Choosing a landing site

The place for cultivating dahlias must be chosen carefully.

He does not like:

• The area where it grew last year.
• Location in the garden or in a flowerbed between buildings - due to inevitable drafts in such places.
• An area where daylight is equal to or exceeds 11 hours, that is, excessive illumination. That is why dahlia rarely blooms in the Leningrad region and in the Arctic, where white nights reign. And not because of the short summer - in the mountains of Mexico, where he comes from, daylight in the gorges and on the mountain slopes does not exceed 6-7 hours, and the nights are cold. Further proof of this is that the flower is still very popular in Sakhalin, the Magadan region and Kamchatka, where it is the most frequent guest in bouquets of first-graders.
• But the lack of direct sunlight has a depressing effect on dahlias, the flowers become smaller and degenerate.

Reproduction methods.

There are two types of this flower: a lush and large perennial and a more modest and small annual. The former reproduce by tubers. The latter are mainly seeds, although tuberous forms are also found.

Annual variety of dahlia

Annuals from seeds are not as capricious and demanding as their perennial counterparts. They, with their small stature, are intended for small beds and growing as borders. They do not need support in the form of a central stake. In the fall, faded plants are dug up and destroyed, and by spring, seedlings are planted from seeds.

1. To do this, in April, seeds from a bag are evenly poured into a container with disinfected sand (the sand can simply be pre-calcined), covered with a thin layer of sand, watered abundantly and covered with film, creating a greenhouse with a temperature of 24-26⁰.
2. Full shoots will appear in a couple of weeks. After the third true leaf comes out, the seedlings are picked, planted in cups and wait for stable heat to plant in flower beds.
3. Before planting seedlings, it is better to check the pH of the soil. If it is acidic, below 5, add lime to the soil. If alkaline with an index greater than 7 – peat.

Perennial species

Growing by cuttings and from seeds is allowed, but still the simplest, most widespread and effective method is by dividing the rhizomes. Perennials are larger, more beautiful and more varied than their annual counterparts, but require more skilled care.

At the end of September, the dying stems are removed with pruning shears, the tubers are dug out from the soil, cleaned of it, be sure to dry it and place it for storage in a dark, cool place. Ideally - in a cellar with a temperature of 3-5⁰С.

If there is no such place, then place a box with dry cold sand in any cool place, and before burying the tubers there, treat them with hot (50-60 degrees) molten paraffin. This is a good way to prevent wet and dry rot from developing. In the spring, it is enough to rub and bend the tubers so that the paraffin crust falls off.