Stopping
DAHLIAS
STOPPING FOR SHOWING
Pictures taken 22/06/18
WINHOLME DIANE
Small decorative
CREAM MOONLIGHT
Semi cactus
SINGLE STOP.
Remove the growing tip 70 days before your choosen show, say Aug 27th,
any buds that appear before that date give or take a day or so should be cut out
down to one or two pair of leaves from the bud depending how early your plant is,
this is now called the knockback method and will give you flowers later in the show season.
DOUBLE STOPPING.
The plant is stopped at 3pair of leaves around mid May and is planted out and allowed to grow on until
the 70 days before your choosen show,
for instance if your show is held on September 4th then counting back 70 days would mean cutting the breaks back to one or two pairs of leaves from the BOTTOM on June 26th,
it would be benificial to give the plants a nitrogen feed at this stage.
At a time when the resultant breaks from this treatment are big enough to handle remove all but the strongest breaks leaving only the ones you intend to flower.
Guidelines to how many breaks per plant,
Medium Decs
Charlie two, Alfs Mascot, Andrea Clarke grow 6 breaks per plant.
Medium Semi Cactus.
Cream moonlight 6, Eastwood moonlight 7/8. Ryecroft Helen 7
Small Decs 6/7
Small Cactus
Kiwi Gloria 8/9 Goldcrest 6
Miniatures etc As many strong breaks as possible and lightly disbud
Large Semi Cactus,
Challenger 5
Giants, 3,
This is only a rough guide as alot will depend on how heavy you feed and how well you prepared your soil.
CREAM MOONLIGHT
Semi cactus
These have a single stop 70 days before a show.
30 days prior to show take off one or two pair of leaves below the bud.
Give a nitrogen feed booster to feed plant
Pictures taken July 11th 2018
Knocking back the Dahlias to the number of flowering breaks that they should have on.
This plant has already been stopped twice
At present this plant has about 11 stems which needs to be reduced to about 5 stems.
Variety - ALFS MASCOT
Remove any dead or diseased leaves from base of plant
Count the number of stems and reduce.
Take off any which are close to each other so the flowers have room to grow
Keep them nice and even, removing the weaker break allowing one flower per stem.
Place 3 canes in a triangle around the plant and tie string around to protect the dahlia from wind damage
Alfs Mascot
27 days to show day
Securing the bud
Need to remove all the buds surrounding the main bud
Leaving one bud to grow for the best results.
Leaving other buds on will prevent the main bud to grow causing it not to reach its full potential
