Dahlia's with a grey bloom on the leaves

Im not sure Melanie, but i grow a lot of Dahlias and i know they need lots of water and feed, but the drainage has to be sharp too or they can become a bit mouldy....i suppose you would need to lift them and check the tuber...make sure there are no vine weevil (small white u shaped grubs) around the root area...Maybe some of our fellow Goyers can help further....:>)

The bud problem could also be snail and slug damage Melanie, they love Dahlias! The leaves on mine are a bit grey and I think like Motinot says its mould. I planted some small chrysanths a few weeks ago and a similar thing has happened with the buds on those, so I sprinkled pellets round and have loads of dead snails every morning to pick up.....:o(

thanks for that Motinot - I will check out the drainage maybe I haven't taken as much care as I should have - still very new to this - if not obvious I'll lift like you suggest the strangest thing is that all but the new one I have put is are flowering great it is just the leaves -

Mildew is causing the white "dust" - its always useful to have a treatment spray available for this, as its such a frequent visitor to our plants. If you haven't a fungicidal spray handy, get some - I've just treated my Verbena, but its best to catch it early rather than wait for it to get a hold.

Aaarhh Janey you have just hit the nail on the head I suffer really badly with slugs - infact they have just slithered all over my parsley not a pleasant thought when I want to add it to the cooking - I can't keep up with the slugs any suggestions on that score???

Slug pellets frequently applied, specially during wet weather.

mmmmm but even the pellets are having little effect on the slugs and more on my cat

Ooh...poor pusscat! You could always try the beer remedy, dig a small hole and pop a jam jar in, half fill with beer and they'll die happy....:o) or sprinkle egg shells around the plants, they hate that and also orange peel.....they can't stand the acid!

Acquire frogs and encourage hedgehogs by feeding them cat or dog food not milk (gives them the trots) - seems to keep mine down. - hate pellets as it goes through the animal food chain damaging frogs that eat slugs and so on. beer already mentioned works too.

I collect all the shells (ALL)....from my raw eggs and crush them, place them around the plants...it works for me....Its the earwigs i have a problem with....:<(

Thats a better idea Drc....to encourage the hedgehogs etc, I would do that only all our garden is walled so there is no way in.....:o( Also, the snails seem to live on the walls, sliding along to the next creeper and not so much on the ground.............

Plant them deep and leave them in the ground. Mine all pulled through this March when the ground temperture went down to -10C!!! Check out my homepage - I've added some dahlia pics today.