Dahlia killer
I really need some kind of 'Dahlia Anonymous' support group right now! I am a failure to growing dahlias and feeling incredibly frustrated. Three years ago, I put a single tuber in the ground. It successfully returned the last two years, though this season it sprouted incredibly late in June instead of March.
Spurred by that initial success, I expanded last year and planted more in the spring. Most sprouted and bloomed, but they were all week looking and by fall, the flowers looked pretty rough. Thinking I had failed to amend the soil correctly, I dug half of them up for winter storage. Unfortunately, I lost half during winter, and the remaining half never sprouted after replanting.
Determined to bypass my soil issues, I decided to switch to grow bags this year. I spent $150 on new tubers in May and tried to pre sprout them in plastic bags. I missed the crucial instruction to keep them in the shade, and the sun completely cooked them. Refusing to give up, I spent another $150 to replace them and planted them directly into grow bags last month. Now that it’s July, I just checked on them and it’s a disaster. Some are completely rotten, some dried up, and some that did sprout have withered away. A few of them sprouted but still are tiny. On top of that, my original in ground bed has one plant that never went dormant and looks terrible.
In the last year alone, I’ve spent over $400 on dahlias and have absolutely nothing to show for it. I feel like I'm doing everything wrong. Please be kind with this idiot, but I desperately need someone to tell me where I am messing up!
*Edit The picture of the one in the ground is the first one I planted that comes up every year. The one that did not go dormant last year is on the left towards the middle by the grow bags.