Dahlia Love – Valley Rust Bucket

All seeds grown in the high wind, lower rain prairie, Midwest, in macro-climate zone 5(ish). Average dewpoint in summer is around 60. Soil is a loamy clay. Although my preference is organic, I have used commercial fertilizers from time to time. Growing Days approximately 135. Gardening Personality: Relaxed, experimental, purist about very little. We practice High Intensity gardening.

This dahlia is classified as a ball type, meaning the blooms are small, around 3-4″, and the small petals wrap backwards to form a ball. In my garden, the Valley Rust Bucket blooms are approximately 4″ across. The plant itself is about 4′ tall, blooms in August and continues to bloom until frost. For my area, I would say it is an early to mid-season dahlia. This plant provides many blooms, quite prolific. A showstopper with the alternating deep orange and cherry red.

My personal growing notes for dahlias. I plant the tubers either inside in late March or outside in mid May, once the soil can maintain an average of 50 degrees. Lay the tuber in the soil, eye/sprout pointing up. If you can’t find the eye, or plant it “wrong”, no worries. The sprout will find its sun. I do not water the tubers in, nor water at all until green shoots are a few inches above the soil. Dahlia tubers are just fussy. They do not like to be wet and will rot at even the slightest opportunity. I do not plant the tubers with any fertilizers. The tuber will feed the baby plant. Once the plants are about a foot tall, I will give them some potassium and a balanced NPK fertilizer, as soil tests indicate my soil is K deficient. I mulch the plant with leaves and grass clippings. Dahlia stems are delicate and break at joints and at the soil line, so I recommend staking early, and gently. Because my season is shorter for dahlias, I do not pinch off (or top) the dahlia plant. Yet I will be experimenting with topping this coming garden season in an attempt to encourage more blooms.

Important Note on Dahlias in Bouquets: Dahlias do not open further once cut from the plant. They also do not last very long in bouquets, less than a week. Best practice is to harvest the bloom when 3/4 of the petals have fully unfurled, peak bloom. Check the back of the flower, it should still be green and firm, with no browning petals.

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