My dahlias are not doing spectacularly well either this year. But do you know what kind it is? I have some dahlias that don't even start to bloom till late August or later. I had one dahlia one year called Summer's End. It was gorgeous. Unfortunately I got my first bloom in very late September, possibly even October. so there wasn't much time to enjoy them. I remember this particular one because I said it should be called Autumn's Beginning instead of Summer's End lol. Maybe you have a late bloomer there?

:)
Dee

Hi Dee! It is a pinnate dahlia. The weird thing is that the one next to it is blooming?!? I planted them late, I think, so maybe that is part of the problem. I feel like they weren’t planted until May! 😦 we shall see. My irises sometimes bloom in September, so my plants are all weird!

@morpheuspa there is almost too much sun at my house. On the balcony, the plants scorch...snapdragons get toasted even though I mist then when I come home from work, and even the dipladenia/mandevilla sometimes struggle! Tricolor Hibiscus required an umbrella and a lot of TLC but is flowering nicely now. That is the balcony where the dahlia in container were a couple years ago, but I wanted to try in ground. i guess maybe the wall is more west than NW? It actually gets a good deal of sun. I will increase the feeding schedule like you said to see if it helps. The soil here sucks - all rock, but we used good quality garden soil to fill the hole when putting the bulbs into the ground. Thanks!
MK

Oh, lesson learned btw. Never using dictation again! Sorry for all the grammatical errors.

Gee, Monica, that is weird that the second one is blooming! Sorry, I got nothing. LOL. I can only commiserate that so many of my dahlias are not doing well either. Many of them look no different than they did when they were planted out. Literally still six inches tall. Very odd.

Here's hoping for some blooms soon for both of us!

:)
Dee

Have you grown Dahlias or anything else in this space before? To me, the very first thing that jumps out at me, is that this is not the place to plant a Dahlia for it to grow happily to your expectations. The bed itself is too small. And it is up against the brick. And if that is a NW exposure, that seems the opposite of what I thought Dahlias want, more sun.

Maybe you have another bed to plant them in? And the bed you have there, still seems too narrow to grow most plants. I think you would be surprised at how well things would grow in a bed that was expanded and came out from the wall double the size you have now at least. Prepare the soil well, replant and mulch and move the Dahlia to more sun and have multiples of 3. At least 3 Dahlias wherever you move them too.

Just an update, they ended up flowering really well, just late!

Yay! Glad they worked out for you!

:)

Dee

if they ended up blooming properly.. but later than you expected .... then i suspect .. as you said.. you got them in late ... so they took a little extra time to get moving ... and perform ..

ken