This blog post is all about tips on dahlia care including watering, soils, fertilizing and cutting your dahlia flowers to keep your dahlias growing strong.
Water is THE most important for good growth for your dahlias, they needs lots of water to keep them blooming strong throughout the flower season.
Water:
Water-Water-Water is the name of the game this time of year, it effects everything about their growth and how well they do. Your soil needs lots of water this time of year, your soil as it’s own living, breathing organism that needs moisture too. The soil will only release water to the plants *IF* it has the moisture it needs first. Deep soak your dahlias 2-3 times per week this time of year. It’s important to water deep enough, to where the water is reaching the 5″-6″ deep to the tuber. Hand watering is never enough, deep soak with a soaker hose for at least 1 hour in your dahlia bed. Your dahlias will appreciate some overhead, hand watering though. It washes the dust off the leaves and they do absorb water through their leaves as well. But soaker hoses should be your main way to get water to the tubers.
Fertilize:
The window is closing on fertilizing your dahlias, don’t want to fertilize after August 15th, the dahlias won’t have enough time to absorb the fertilizer completely before fall. Fertilize now if you have not already, use a granular fertilizer with a ratio of 5-10-10 or as close to that number as you can find.
How to Cut your Dahlia Flowers:
2 rules of thumb with us: Always cut your flowers in the morning and cut a stem nothing shorter than from the tips of your fingers to your elbow, even if you take off the side buds. The side buds are weaker flowers, the strongest flower will be the center flower. Cutting yourself a long stem will promote more bloom, sending up 2 new sprouts in place of the one you just cut. The more you cut dahlias, the more they will bloom.
Here is a short video from Dahlia Barn owner Jerry Sherrill on how to properly cut your dahlia plants.
