Daliah leaves been eaten

My daliah plant leaves have been eaten all leaves have been eaten

The plant was close to blooming

Dont know what has happened

I have shown a picture of the plant when leaves were not eaten

 

Probably slugs and/or snails.
The plant will probably recover and bloom again in a few weeks if you can stop the culprits.

Slug pellets available today are much kinder to nature than the old metaldehyde pellets that were very toxic - so up to you.
Or you could go out at night and deal with them as you see fit.....

 

I'm afraid probably slugs or snails. If you move the leaves around in the light you might see the shiny trails. Put a good layer of grit around the base of the plant, water well (the soil looks dry) and they should grow new leaves. If you invert the leaf ribs and see grubs or caterpillars, that's another possibility. Squish them.

 

Snap!

 

I planted out some dahlias last week at the same time as coreopsis and verbenas, all yellow-stickered bedding from the supermarket. The dahlias and verbenas are still looking fine but the coreopsis have been eaten to the ground. So maybe you need to grow coreopsis to distract the culprits from your dahlias!
Mind you they'll probably be on to my dahlias next.

 

After having my favourite pompom dahlias munched to oblivion years ago, I switched over to only growing purple/bronze leaf dahlias and the slugs do tend to ignore them.

Doesn't help with the ones you have, but I would choose dark leaf dahlias next time and see how they get on.

 

I find that the bronze leaved ones get munched with me. I prefer the dark foliaged ones myself, the majority of my dahlias are grown in pots thanks to the slugs and snails.

 

Same situation here - every year. I only started growing them again a few years ago, and within a few weeks, I remembered why I'd stopped growing them.
I've resorted to using a 'moat' for dahlias. I have a couple of large-ish metal trays which work quite well, but slugs can get across a surprisingly decent amount of water, which people often don't realise. Fortunately, I also have quite a good shallow part in my pond, and a pot put up on bricks in there, was very effective. I had one which was being totally trashed, and it was astounding how well it came back.
Keeping them viable over winter is another problem though. The seed sown ones can be better, but you don't get the variety of flower.
If that one was mine, I'd lift it and pot it up, making sure there are no slugs/snails in the soil around it. If you don't, it's a captive audience...

Like @NigelJ - mine are all grown in pots. Absolutely no use in the ground.

 

Nope I was wrong, went out this morning to put in some more plants and realised that it was the dahlias that were leafless. Oh well. I've left my nice dark leafed one in a pot and it's looking good so far.

 

I do have Dahlia imperialis in the ground, the first shoots get munched, but it grows faster than the slugs can eat it, they finally catch up at the end of the growing season.

 

I avoid growing known slug favourites here apart from Hostas which are in pots and on a bench. The only two Dahlias I have are in the ground and so far untouched. Since removing two large beds of Bergenias which were here when I moved in, the slug population has diminished and I hardly see any, although I don't go out at night looking for them . I also have an active blackbird patrol on my lawn and in borders which also helps.

 

I find the same.
All my dahlias are Bishops Children grown from seed - dark leaves and hot tropical colours..
Some plants are 6-7yrs old now. I never lift them.
Early growth is munched by slugs, but the plants persist and usually they overcome the damage - but sometimes not, so I sow a few seeds each Spring to replace any casualties.

 

I used to leave them in the ground and some years they would be ok after a slight munching but other years they are continuously eaten to the point that they are months behind. The dry spring this year would have been good for them, we had very little signs of slugs/snails, but they have well and truely caught up now and are grazing most things.
I gave up on dahlias because I didn't think it was worth the effort and wanted the space for new things but growing them in pots to a large size before planting out worked well. I am talking about several feet high before planting as I grew the taller varieties and not the little dwarf ones.

 

I had one in a container last year. It was a disaster. I didn't get around to dumping it and couldn't get it out of the container this year. I must've scared the pants off it. It's looking really healthy and coming into bud. I think you're right about the dry spring (and winter).It didn't rot and no slugs @Thevictorian