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"Gardening With Dahlias"
INTRODUCTION Gardeners from many countries have chosen to grace their homes, landscapes, and garden plots with dahlias, one of the longest blooming flowers in cultivation. No doubt, many reasons exist for their choice. While many grow dahlias solely as a decorative planting, others are more interested in artistic arrangement and cut flowers. For decorative landscaping; they may use them as focal points in the home garden where they may select a plant that possesses a huge bloom, 12 inches or more in diameter, and thereby create a conversation piece. Still, others may concentrate on border plantings (12 inches or so in height) or mass planting of one variety for a special effect. Some find additional uses by using the dahlia for screens where the selected variety is crucial. The landscaping potential is great and the few above examples serve mainly to pique the imagination. In one home garden, the gardener has successfully groomed a small growing dahlia waterlily formation to cascade to the ground near his pool. The number of possibilities abounds including patio dahlias that are specially grown in ornamental troughs, pots, and tubs. Artistic arrangement adds another dimension to the dahlia. Flower arrangers vie for certain dahlia varieties that allow them to interpret for their thematic arrangement since the dahlia offers so much variation in form, size, and color. For special occasions, one or more baskets of dahlias will set off an event, whether it is for a church service, wedding, funeral, or community meeting. The cut flower comes into its own, though, for the gardener who desires to grow a few plants for house decoration. Whether for the professional or the amateur, the cut flower needs certain qualities, such as vigor, abundant bush habit, adequate stem length, many blooms from the beginning to the end of the season, a long vase life, and insect and disease resistance. Additionally, when the bloom is cut at an immature stage, it must successfully continue its development in water. Color is the dominant quality and gardeners' preferences will vary greatly. For cutting purposes, small (4-6 inches in diameter), Miniature (2-4 inches in diameter), pompons, and open-centered dahlias function best as cut flowers. Still, it depends on the purpose that a gardener grows dahlias. A DEEPER LOOK 1. Garden Type dahlias We will state what section of the country they do well in. Some varieties just don't make it in certain areas of the country. The major features of the variety, and where you can get one.
2. Cut flower type dahlias. These varieties lend themselves to use in bouquets and arraignments. 3. Border/Container type dahlias. These little beauties are just the thing for your flower garden as a long lasting color accent. They also are well suited for use in containers by themselves or with other plant material. We will show pictures of all varieties we talk about so you can see how they look, included with the picture will be cultural information. In addition we will show pictures of gardens that feature dahlias along with other flowers and plants. These will not be pictures of exhibition type gardens --straight rows with stakes, shade cloth and only dahlias. If you do have pictures of your garden that features dahlias in a garden setting send them on to the webmaster along with a short description of the garden. There will also be hints and practices that will make your dahlia growing less stressful and easy. Please feel free to comment or suggest items for this section. You don't have to be a member of ADS to comment or ask a question. ADS BORDER/CONTAINER DAHLIA OF THE YEAR In order to select and showcase exceptional border/container dahlias the American Dahlia Society conducts annual garden trials of border and container dahlias and selects one variety to be the ADS Border/Container Dahlia Of The Year. Starting in 2007 the annual winners are being profiled in short articles which you can read by clicking on the underlined links below.
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