Hallo to everyone, I'm a 42 years amateur gardener with a lot of passion in plants and flower. I live in north of Italy and I did not find any good garden forum about Dahlias so here I am. I see a lot of green thumbs over here. Most of the times i just took a look at forum threads but decided finally to sign up. So here some background informations about my Dahlias grow. I bought the tubers in february from Holland, as my mother is dutch, and always in love with their productions. Planted them on 28 february , when here the chances of frost are very limited. I planted them all in pots.. Good soil, slow release fertilizer and lots of care. At beginning Dahlias struggled a little and even if I took a good care not to overwater them I think I had some sort of fungi problem , maybe phytium. Which i fortunately get rid of with a good sistemic funcicide. Here it is . Hope you like , and feel free to ask whatever you want. Ciaooo






Burlesca

Orange Fubuki

Jowey Winnie



Maxime

Orange Fubuki

Take Off

Welcome to NGA Graham! Thank you for sharing your pics and story. Too early for blooms in my northern climate, but they are growing well.

Hallo hostasmore, thank you ! I will post more pictures as flowering goes on. Well, I just checked and I live at the same latitude as Wyoming(45° north) but we have totally different climate and hardiness. But that's how strange and fascinating climate is. Bye

Hallo, here with some pictures update. Flowering going very good, we are at the start of a small heatwave over here, with max over 32°.

Boom Boom White :



Maxime:





Jowey Linda:





Orange Fubuki:




Some group pictures:

Welcome to NGA and the Dahlia forum.

You have many beauties there. I wish you continued success.

Mine are still growing but it will be some time before they flower.

Your blooms are lovely! Enjoy them and keep posting, I have a few buds on mine today, so I'm hopeful, though I know it can take forever to bloom especially with all my rain of late.

I really like your orange Fubuki and jowey Linda. Keep up the good work!

@pirl Thank you very much, when Dahlias usually begin to flower in your zone ? I think I started very early also for my area, but I bought my first tubers on the end of february and wanted to plant them straight away. I was lucky no frost came after that.
@ScarletTricycle Thank you !! I do my best ;). I see that your zone is quite north so you will have a little to wait for flowers. Rain can slow down growth. I would be so concerned about fungi problems. I think I'm start to become hypochondriacal with flowers.

Talking about hypochondriacal , I thought roses were full of problems during growth, both fungi and insects. But Dahlias keep it up very well. They can have almost all problems during growth . But they give you so much satisfactions that it definetly worth the hassle.

Graham: my first one opened last year in mid July and then it was about two weeks later for the rest to start blooming. They got heavy with flowers by late August and I was picking quite a few. I did not have issues with fungus or the like last year and we had a lot of rain much like what it is doing this season. So I'm hopeful this year I'll do about the same. And yes on being further North - I deal with snow and cold a lot longer some years and summers can be hot and humid especially July and August. I get a full offering of the four seasons (though winter seems to be stretching further into April these past few years).

Enjoy your blooms! What's been your favorite thus far?

@ScarletTricycle Thank you for the informations. Interesting. Having a full offering from all seasons is good. Here we have mostly winter and summer with little of spring and autumn. Summers can be very hot and humid, but we got nice weather for plants generally from April to October.
My favourite is hard to tell: I like Take Off, Orange Fubuki and Jowey Linda the most till now, but I have great expectations on Great Silence which popped out just yesterday and should be in full bloom in 2-3 days.
Bye

Looking forward to Great Silence.

There's sometimes a surprise July bloom, more in August and explosions in September and October.

Graham: you should join everyone over on the 2020 dahlia thread. There are a lot of knowledgeable and dahlia addict friends there w/ a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm for this family of flowers. Plus they always post photos of their killer blooms too! And then your shopping list gets longer

The thread "2020 Dahlia Season" in Dahlias forum

@pirl Hallo, to be honest Great Silence is not doing as expexted. Foliage in both plants I have have always had some strange clearer dots, and the flowers are not so healthy too.
Sounds like a long flowering season over there. Here the only problems would be violent outburst thunderstorms and hot temperatures. Will see.
@ScarletTricycle, thank you I will definetly take a look and join also that thread.

Here some photo update:

Boom boom White, which I like a lot, stays white under heavy rain and big flowers. Noticed that the flower stay sideways and not up like the Jowey's.





Great Silence, not doing so great. And a pic of the foliage too ;)





Jowey Linda, probably my favourite, beautiful colors and shape and huge flowers:




Jowey Winnie, has different shade of colors between one plant and another and also from just flowered and late flowering:




Some bouquet:




Group shots, under sun and shade (my terrace is facing SE, morning to midday sun , shade afternoon):



After all I'm very happy of what they're doing, being my first time with Dahlias. Maybe I bought too many but with automatic irrigation I solve lots of work. ;)

Looking good! Even the blooms you aren't as enamored with - they all are such a lovely bunch. I've got some buds on my own so maybe in the next few weeks, I should check them out today.

Thank you Scarlet, hope your bloom will be satisfiying too.

Such a treat for the eyes, Graham. I really like the Jowey Linda.

grahambond ..many ole favs just perfect and so nice to see. lovely tour.. all dahlia forms are just..."STUNNIN"😍

grahambond- Thank you so much for posting the amazing bloom pictures! Mine are probably a month away, so this helps tremendously. I love Jowey Winnie (I try to find random places to plant my excess tubers of it, as it hurts my heart to throw them in the compost bin), and thanks to your Take Off pics, well that one is going on my WANT list.

Hallo to everyone, sorry for the absence but I'm quite busy in this early summer.
@pirl Thank you, I also love Jowey Linda but now I have a challenger
@bumplbea so much, I love them too .
@Melissamaeday Thnk you too, Jowey Winnie was probably my reason why n°1 why I choose to grow Dahlia. beautiful colors changing from start bloom to late bloom.

Some updates: last week we had a couple of severe thunderstorms but Dhalias reacted very well. I did not imagine that 60mm of rain in 3 hours with also little hailstorm could test them so good. At least 6 plants fell to the terrace floor but with a little patience they are all ok. Another good reason to choose this beautiful plant. Not one branch broken or flower fell off, just two werte hanging down.

Last two variety bloomed,
Karma Bon Bini: I love it!





Cornel: A littler bigger than Burlesca , with backfacing lighter colors





Orange Fubuki: really a wild bloomer and fascinating colors




Take Off:



Jowey Linda: Just wonderful




Jowey Winnie:


Great Silence:


Some bouquet:

@grahambond: lovely lovely! Thanks for sharing. My first one that bloomed was kind of homely (In the 2020 dahlia thread) so it's so nice to see the colors and shapes you have. Thanks to your blooms I have the Joweys on my list to possibly add if I can. Thanks for sharing your beauties!