10 tips for blooming & healthy dahlias

Pure joie de vivre - dahlias enchant young and old with their beauty. With these tips you can make dahlias feel good in your garden too.

Dahlias (Dahlia) - these lush summer plants beautify every garden. From July to autumn, they delight us with their magical blossoms and with their bright colors make the hearts of amateur gardeners beat faster. But for many the question arises as to how one can support the dahlias so that they bloom even more beautifully and eagerly. With these ten tips we show you how you can help your dahlias to show their full splendor.

Tip 1: location

As beautiful as the dahlia is, it also places high demands on its environment. The tropical plant likes a sunny place with nutrient-rich and well-drained soil. It is very sensitive to waterlogging, so good water drainage is essential. For the right nutrient content, a large portion of compost can be buried in the soil so that the dahlia can grow and thrive. Alternatively, you can use high-quality potting soil like ours

Plantura organic potting soil use. It supplies your dahlias optimally for a lush and long-lasting bloom.

Tip 2: from the tuber to the plant

When buying dahlias, you usually have two options: buying mature plants or bulbs. Tubers are usually cheaper. The future dahlias can be planted from the beginning of May, but they should be put in water overnight beforehand, where they can compensate for their lack of water from the winter. Dig holes about 10 to 15 cm deep and insert the tuber. The tip should point upwards and be covered a few centimeters with earth. Dahlias grown from tubers tend to flower a little later, like pot dahlias. Moving forward in your own house can bring a simple remedy: From March you can plant the plant in the house and later move it into the bed like a normal potted plant.

Tip 3: Get out of the pot

Dahlias can also be purchased in pots. The advantage of these plants is that they bloom several weeks before their counterparts drawn from tubers. In addition, you can sort out sickly or poorly developed dahlias in the shop and only select the most beautiful plants for your garden. Depending on the weather (dahlias cannot tolerate frost), the new flowers can be planted in the garden in May or June. After planting, the dahlias should be watered regularly, preferably twice a week. So they can grow and develop optimally.

Tip 4: Into the living room

Dahlias are not only suitable for the garden. They can also beautify every house as a potted plant. Dahlias are best suited for this because they take up less space. But larger variants can also be grown in the house, but you must remember that the pot is also selected in a suitable size. Otherwise, dahlias in pots are very grateful plants that are particularly easy to care for. Only a regular water supply should be guaranteed, as the soil in the pot dries out quickly.

Tip 5: water march

Once the dahlias are in the bed, they show rapid growth. That is why proper care is of particular importance to them. The dahlia should be watered at least twice a week as it uses a lot of water for its extremely fast growth. The watering frequency should be adjusted in hot temperatures, as a lot of water evaporates over the spreading plants. The dahlia should still not get wet feet because it does not like waterlogging.

Tip 6: the right fertilizer

the Fertilization of dahlias is quite manageable. Before planting, it is advisable to mix the soil with compost in order to provide the dahlia with an optimal supply of nutrients. Until August, fertilizer can then be regularly worked into the surface of the soil. Compost or manure are best for this. These fertilizers are not only particularly environmentally friendly, they are also low in nitrogen. This is particularly important for the dahlia, as it reacts to an oversupply of nitrogen by increasing the growth of leaves but decreasing the willingness to flower. So if you want a sea of ​​flowers in the garden, you should use low-nitrogen alternatives when choosing the fertilizer.

Tip 7: the perfect cut

Another point in the Dahlia care is the right cut. Wilted flowers not only look ugly, they also take away important resources from the plant. If you remove these from the plant regularly, the dahlia can form new, fresh shoots. In the young plant, too, it can make sense to cut off individual shoot tips so that flower formation and branching increase. Basically, the fewer shoots that are left on a plant, the larger the individual flowers will be.

Tip 8: attack is the best defense

Dahlias also have enemies: snails and aphids make use of the beautiful plants and can seriously damage them. Snails you can with Snail traps- and keep fences from nibbling on the beautiful flowers. With soapy water or ladybirds, you can Fight aphids. At the same time, diseases such as the gray mold or the mildew rob the dahlias of their beauty. In order to prevent this, one should especially make sure that the plants are not too tight stand together, the humidity is not too high and the plants are not too watered are wetted. If you take action at an early stage, you can protect your dahlias from all kinds of damage.

Tip 9: Thank you for the flowers

Who wouldn't want to impress their loved ones with a bouquet of beautiful dahlias? Especially if you are growing the flowers in your own garden, it is a good idea to use a few of the flowers from time to time to decorate the apartment. To get the perfect bouquet of dahlias, wait until the flowers have fully opened. Now you can cut off the flowers on the stems with a sharp and clean knife. It is important to have a clean, slightly angled cut through which the flowers can later draw water. Immediately after cutting, you should put the flowers in warm water. If you also change this regularly (about every two days) and use cut flower fertilizer, your bouquet will stay beautiful for a particularly long time.

Tip 10: winter is coming

Dahlias don't like the cold. Therefore, they are unsuitable for wintering in the garden and should be brought into the house before the first frost. To do this, cut the flower to about 10 cm above the ground and dig out the tubers. These can now be stored in a dry, cool, but frost-free place until next spring. Before storage, the onions should be freed from the soil and then spread out airily. Wintering in the garden can only succeed in particularly mild regions. To protect the tubers from the weather, you can cover them with brushwood, leaves or straw, however, losses and total failures can still occur if the temperatures are too low will. More about Wintering dahlias find out here.

If this information is not enough for you, you can find more interesting ones in our special article Care tips for dahlias read up.