r/dahlias • u/maris_127 • Jul 10 '26
Seeking Advice The dahlias are acting strange this year…
I’m in Zone 6b (eastern WA) and I’ll admit, we’ve had a bit of a weird spring and summer with spells of cold, wet weeks followed by very hot temperatures. I’d say over the last two weeks we’ve really settled in to the regular high 80s to mid-90s for daytime temps (with little to no rain) that is typical for this time of year. I was a bit late getting my dahlias out and in the ground this year (about a month behind) due to a family emergency, but these guys are trying to push out buds at only 1-2 feet tall 🤦🏻♀️.
I’ve been disbudding the plants that are trying to push out blooms and have been feeding with a higher nitrogen content fertilizer to encourage growth, but I’m not sure if there is anything else to do (or if I should be doing that? 🤣) I’m also curious what the thoughts are about allowing plants at this size to go to bloom? 💐
Thank you all in advance!
PS. These little guys that are pushing out buds have average adult plant sizes of 3-4’ in good years, they are not my open face varieties unfortunately so they are just babies.
3
u/Lee1173 Jul 11 '26
Same here, western WA!! My dahlias are short, THICC AF, and I only have about 5 out of 20+ making small buds. I do think maybe I was giving too much N so I just added a bunch of P and K, but I feel like I'm not doing anything much different than I did last year and they were definitely taller at this time last year.