Dahlia
Dahlia is a long-term culture, but such a plant does not hibernate in our North-West region, we have to dig out tubers every year, dry it and then plant it again. We have a dahlia as an annual culture.
Forms of dahlias are very diverse, I do not speak about coloring, because there are no other colors in such a variety of colors, well, maybe only gladioli can compete with dahlias.
The height of dahlias varies: there are huge, under 2 m, there are dwarfs, only 30-40 cm tall. There are tampons, they are quite small, they are similar to balls, the same round, monochromatic or multicolored. There are chrysanthemum, very similar to chrysanthemums. They happen to change color in the evening, like a lotus. Now the fashion for small dahlias has gone, they are only 20-30 cm high, they have tiny flowers, 1.5-3 cm in diameter.
If you want your dahlia to blossom beautifully and grow, you must rejuvenate it. For this, every year or every 2-3 years, grow a new dahlia bush from the sprouts of the old one. In the same way as it is done with potatoes. You must plant the tubers, you will have shoots from them, you will break them, separate the roots and grow a separate bush. This bush will be wonderful to bloom in the first year.
When you purchase planting material in nurseries, you always get seedlings, not a tuber. So do not be afraid to cut the sprouts from the tuber, which makes it possible to multiply the variety that you like very quickly.
Well, now it's all in order. Spring begins, you have purchased tubers, they are usually paraffined. Germs are so strong that they themselves will break through this layer, so do not need anything with paraffin. You may even get so that already when storing the tubers begin to give sprouts. This is not good. There is nothing terrible, but you have to cultivate this dahlia at home and transport it with a larger plant to the site, or if you have a constant plus temperature in your dacha in the room, at least 3-4 degrees of heat, then you can directly transport the tubers and alreadyon a place them подращивать.Dahlia is not frosty at all, even at a temperature of 0.5 degrees it is already dying. Therefore, it is impossible to plant an early dahlia, or if you plant it, you should provide protection against frost.
When a spring appeared in the apartment( it is best, if it happens in late March), you put a tuber of dahlia, like potatoes, on the greenery in a cool bright place. In the warmth, it will begin to grow very rapidly, long, weak stems will appear, but you do not need it. If you do not even have shoots, you still need to lay tubers for greening at the end of March. When the shoots go, the plant will take everything from the tuber, if the tuber is large enough and strong, then these nutrients will suffice. If the tuber is young, slightly thicker than the finger, then there will be few nutrients, so you need to form your own roots as soon as possible, and have to put it in moist soil. Once you do this, the tuber will immediately grow very quickly. At the first stage of growing the house, it is better to feed the shoots, for this purpose "Uniflorrost"( 1 teaspoon per 3 liters of water) is suitable. But, in principle, any complex mineral fertilizer will do.
So, dahlias begin to grow up, reach 15 cm, this is likely to happen in the early days of May. Now they can be landed in the ground, only shallow, because the soil must be warm, and only the upper layer warms up by this time. Then all the same it is necessary to hoe, put a stick and tie it. So do not go deep. If you do, you'll have a tuber lying in the soil, because the temperature is below 10-12 degrees, and it will just sit in the soil like a vault. Therefore, the planting should be shallow, the soil layer is heated in May to a depth of 8-10 cm, this depth is worth planting. But there may be frosts, so you cross two arcs crosswise over it and cover with double lutrasil, you should not use the film. After the frost has passed, remove the shelter. The plant will be large and will blossom early.
In the North-West it is very important to plant precisely dwarfish dahlias, because we often have late and early autumn frosts. And at this time the dahlias are just starting to bloom. They blossom somewhere in August, a little bit bloom, and they are killed by frost. If you plant a dahlia, it will blossom in July, and you will admire its flowering throughout August. Then you can save it, for this you need to cover August 22-25 with a double lutrasil. The first frost usually does not kill the entire aboveground part, the green part is still standing. All the strength of the plant from the tuber passed into the buds and flowers, and the tuber is very weak, so that the tuber is restored, it needs an above-ground part, leaves are needed, so leave it, even if your flowers are dead and the leaves still exist. But when the entire aboveground part of the frost destroyed, then you need to immediately cut it. And then you will have two ways. First, you plant the plant, the second - just pour a couple of buckets of peat or any land on top, directly to the center of the bush, so as not to allow the tuber to freeze. So you need to hold more days 10-12 in the ground, so that the peel is coarsened on the tubers, and then the tubers will be less prone to any injuries. After that, you dig them out, wash them with a strong stream of water from the hose, if you do not have a pump, then rinse well in a barrel of water. Then you take out the tuber, write a number on it, and in the notebook write under which number, what grade, its name, height and flowering time.
Now you must split the rhizome, until the remainder of the stem is dried, because the growth buds are right at the base of this stem. Divide the tuber so that each tuber gets a piece of this stem( leave a penishek height of only 2 cm).When this scallop is dry, it is difficult to cut it, and when it is still dry, you immediately divide it into parts and carefully separate the tuber directly from this part, everything else you just throw out. Next, you let the tubers dry up completely at room temperature, so that the stem is completely dry, and then wax it.
How to wax? You put a pot of paraffin on the fire, when the paraffin melts, you, at one end, dunk it and instantly take out each tuber. Then you dunk another part, which is not yet paraffined. Then you put them in storage, for example, in any shoe box, and keep a balcony or loggia or a window-sill near the door, only in no case have a heating battery. Can be folded into a tight canvas bag and hung in the toilet on a pipe with cold water or on a fan tube. You can put in a moss-sphagnum, in a cool place.
There is a wonderful way, when the tubers do not wax, they are simply covered twice with a layer of whipped protein. You take an egg, separate the protein from the yolk, whisk the protein well, take a shaving brush and all the tubers twice and everything. Are stored in the same way.
There is another way to dig a tuber of dahlias. Immediately after the aboveground part was frozen, it is necessary to excavate the rhizome, shake the soil from it, put the newspaper in the shed, decompose them and cover it with a newspaper on top - that's all. After 10-15 days, your skin will coarsen, and you cut them, write down the name, if there is any dirt on them, you can simply dip them into the water. Then you divide, wax or lubricate with protein and deposit. It's who and how convenient. But you need a period to form a dense skin on the tubers.
There are several conditions for growing dahlias. The first is to be stored correctly: you can not store the rhizome of dahlias with potatoes, you can not store a huge rhizome, you can not dry it properly, and it will rot in your cellar or rot. In addition, when you store an old rhizome, deterioration of the variety and colors begins, and gradually your shrub decays.
How to rejuvenate the dahlia? When you share a bush, you get a certain amount of tubers, and this is a planting material that can not only be planted, but sold and exchanged. But there are not so many tubers, and if you want to quickly breed a variety, you do the following. On the cultivation of the tuber take out earlier, somewhere in February. And immediately planted in the soil, watered, keep in a warm place and, as soon as the sprouts appear, you break them and immediately root. Put in a solution of "Kornevin".This is a drug that promotes the formation of callus, that is, the thickening at the end of the sprout, from which the roots are then formed. Keep a day in this preparation, and then put either in water, or in good soil immediately. Deepening do in the soil, gently down the sprout, press the soil, pour and put in a warm and bright place. Cover with a jar. It will take root and grow. Such an early planted plant will bloom early, and you will get a pretty good tuber, two fingers thick and a finger long. It is a beautiful, young tuber, and within 3-5 years it will be able to give beautiful offspring and keep your variety in excellent condition. In addition, when you break one stalk, immediately another 1 -2 will go, you will break them and root them, and so on. That is, you can remove 10-15 cuttings from one tuber, and this is 10-15 bushes, which you can grow and sell or exchange.
Do not seek to buy large tubers, aim to buy young ones, they are finger-length and two fingers thick. Before planting a tuber, you do not need to process anything. Tubers after harvesting need to be processed if you had any diseases, for example, rust on leaves or wilting or decay of stems. Then you will have to, before you wax them, hold 15 minutes in a solution of potassium permanganate, then take it out. But if the bush was healthy, then do not do this.
Now about what the gladiolus pests. There are thrips, it is rare, there are aphids, with it the easiest way to fight urea. Take 3 tbsp.spoons of urea, add potassium permanganate and sprinkle. And even better spray the plant with the drug "Healthy Garden"( 2-4 grains per 1 liter of water).
Against diseases, you can use a solution of "Phytosporin".
Dahlia does not like acidic soils, dense clays and stagnant waters. He is hygrophilous enough and takes out a lot of nutrients. Therefore, it should be watered in dry weather and fed. To begin with, you can give azofoska, directly loosen it in the soil around the perimeter of the crown. Stop 1 tbsp. A spoonful of azofoski under the bush on moist soil. You can also use ash, you will need 0.5 cups of water. But then you have to pour more infusion of weeds and manure.
How much to leave stems in each bush? If you get a plant from the shoot, then only one. If the plant is a tuber, then try to leave one stem, maximum 2-3, if the tuber is large. Many stems and greenery - few flowers. Therefore, you can not plant this huge rhizome, from which climb a whole forest and a huge green mass, and there are practically no flowers. You will have one main stem, on which one large flower will blossom. And later, from the sinus of the leaves go stepchildren, which will also appear buds. If you want to get large and lush flowers, then axillary ones must be broken out very early. And, if you want the bush to bloom for a long time, then leave the axillaries too, and they will take turns to bloom, but there will be no large flowers on the bush.
Never leave a fading flower. You must break it, so that a seed box does not form, as the plant will spend a lot of energy on the seeds and the tuber will continue to be depleted. Then they will freeze, without a leaf, the tuber can not recover, it will weaken, and next year the flowering will get worse. So do not forget to remove the wilted flowers.
If there are any suspicions that you have fusarial wilting( this is immediately obvious, because all the leaves suddenly hang at once, like the ears of a poodle), this bush should be dug and must be burned.
Dahlias must be tied up, because they have fragile stems. Therefore, you do not need to plant dahlias where there are strong winds. He prefers sunny places, soil neutral, rich in humus, because this plant takes a lot out of the soil, so the food should be good. After flowering, you must also feed it. There is enough superphosphate and potassium, this is for the tuber. Seal the soil around the perimeter of the crown. This should be done in mid-August, no matter whether it has faded or not.