After-Culture

This comprises chiefly staking, hoeing, protection, and slight pruning.

"Dahlias should never be pruned until the bloom buds show, and then but few branches should be cut out, and only such as are growing across others. The buds should be thinned, for it is by these that the strength of the plant gets exhausted. By removing all that are too near one to be bloomed, and all those that show imperfections enough to prevent them being useful, much strength will be gained by the future flowers. So, also, by pulling off the blooms themselves, the moment they are past perfection, instead of letting them seed." - Glenny: Gard. and Pract. Flor.

"Winds and sun," adds an anonymous but correct writer, "are both detrimental; and the practice of fixing the blooms in the centre of a flat board, and covering them with glass or flowerpots as they may want light or shade, is becoming general. The more easy way is to use a paper-shade for any particular fine bloom; for however the flowers may be coaxed and nursed under cover, a stand of blooms grown finely and merely shaded from the hottest sun, will beat all others in brilliancy, and in standing carriage, and keeping. It is right to go round the plants, and, wherever there is a promising bud or bloom, to take away all the leaves and shoots that threaten to touch it as they grow; take off also the adjoining buds; and if the weather be windy make it fast to a stick or one of the stakes, that it may not be bruised or frayed; shade it from the broiling sun; and it will so profit by the air and night-dews, as compared with the bloom under pots and glasses, that if the growth be equal, the blooming will be superior. Nevertheless people will cover; and where there is a disposition to a hard eye, it will hardly come out perfect unless it is covered.

As the end of September approaches, or as soon as you have done with the bloom, earth up the plants, that when the frost comes it may not reach the crown." - Gard. and Pract. Florist.

Preserving The Roots

"The plants may be raised without injury," says Dr. Lindley, "immediately after the blooms are cut off by the frost, provided that they are hung up in a dry and ordinarily protected situation, with the roots uppermost, if care is taken to leave six or seven inches of the stem attached to each tuber; this maybe done without the slightest fear of their withering from having been lifted in a green state. As the winter advances, and the tubers become matured and firm, the ordinary modes of protection against frost may be resorted to." - Gard. Chron.

Protector

The best devised shelter from the sun for the Dahlia is drawn and thus described in the Gard. Chron.

"This protector is made of wicker-work, and consists of an inverted shallow basket; to which is attached a tube made of the same material, through which the dahlia stick is passed; and a peg being inserted between the stick and the tube, it is firmly secured at any height required. It measures twelve inches in diameter, in the widest part, and is three and a half in depth. From its being made of so light a material, and from its simplicity of construction, it is not easily displaced or put out of order, and the flower not being confined within anything, is less liable to be damaged by coming in contact with any substance that would injure the petals. It requires to be painted to preserve it from decay, and if the outside be made green, and the inside white, the appearance of them would not be disagreeable, and the insects lurking inside would be easily perceived".