The Garden Journal

I had posted on social media channels that I would be sharing some of my thoughts on dahlias. After many years growing, and many mistakes, triumphs, disappointments and wins, I’m here to tell you what we look for when shopping around for Dahlias, as the field of options has become incredibly diverse, and saturated. And I’m both incredibly picky, and more educated than when I first started growing dahlias.

Whether you grow 5 dahlias, or 5000, learning the “tricks” to both sourcing, and planting viable tubers, as well as how to safeguard and build your own stock, can save a lot of heartache when you are trying to curate a collection.

Sourcing: I have very strong opinions that not all sources of dahlia tubers are great options, and have bought from enough places now that I am very selective about who we buy from, and where those tubers come from.

1. Make sure that the tubers you are purchasing actually come from who you are purchasing them from. In other words, the seller is not reselling tubers they bought or sourced elsewhere. Why is this important? Many growers have the ability to purchase wholesale tubers that come from overseas, and are often not tested for disease/virus, thus are a rampant source of common problems in dahlia stock, like crown or leafy gall, or mosaic virus. That tuber clump may seem like a great deal, but when you receive it, and every tuber is either broken off at the attachment site, or is withered dry and has no life left, it doesn’t matter how low the price is if you’re getting a dead tuber that was manhandled by farm equipment and packaged without inspection. Our tubers are always only grown on our farm, and we have the ability to see the life of the tuber from one season to the next, to make sure the tubers are performing well in the field, in storage, and are staying disease free. At any sign of any concerns, we immediately remove those tubers or that variety from our program and offerings, as we will not share dahlia diseases with our customers. As well, they are dug, and divided, by hand, by our trained team.
2. Look for transparency from the growers you source from. They should tell you how they grow, what they use, and why they do what they do. Every grower does things differently, and that’s ok, but they shouldn’t have anything to hide when asked.
3. Have clarity on purchase policies: this is important. Each grower should have a clear outline on what their return/refund policy is, and when you purchase from that grower, you enter an agreement that those terms are amenable to you. If you don’t like the terms, then shop elsewhere. Not liking the terms after you receive a product is not a great time to decide you are unhappy with that grower, especially if they clearly outlined their policies.
4. Support the growers that offer a product you love! So important…dahlia tubers are an immense amount of labor, and often little return to growers. Our labor costs have gone up exponentially, and dahlias are a huge part of our time and cost, year-round. If you want quality dahlia tubers to continue to be available, then please, shop with the growers you love. They appreciate it, I promise!
5. Make sure you purchase from a certified nursery operation. We are Washington State Department of Agriculture certified and inspected on an annual basis, and are allowed to ship our tubers nationwide based on our growing operation and practices. We have an inspector look over all parts of our operation, during all stages of growth, to storage. This should be the bare minimum a grower does to insure that both quality and disease-free stock is being offered. Not to mention, if you have a nursery license (which is mandatory for shipping tubers), then you are not allowed to bring in stock from another source that was not inspected and up to code per that state agriculture requirements. This is to help safeguard the transfer of noxious pests and diseases via plant material. This differs from state to state. Again, not spreading these problems should be a huge concern, and the growers you support should take this seriously, and do everything in their control to avoid cross-contamination.

 

Education: know what you should be looking at in regards to the plant you are buying. This goes for any plant, but being able to tell the difference between a healthy tuber and a non-viable tuber is your responsibility as a consumer and grower.

1. Size does not always matter. Yes, this is probably a controversial topic. Not all tubers are massive beasts. Quite a few varieties only produce smaller tubers. Don’t expect tubers all to be a certain size or “they won’t grow”. I’ve had larger tubers not grow, and smaller tubers be champs. As long as they have the components they need: healthy, complete body, fully attached neck to a head with a visible eye/sprout, you’re good to plant.
2. Know what gall looks like: there are 2 types. They are not the same. They come from different sources. Both can be vectored by insects and snips. They can live in the soil, which may mean that the source of gall may not always be the tuber. It’s a complicated issue. One way to make sure your tuber doesn’t have gall is to let it “eye up” before you plant it. This is one reason we wake up our tubers before packing and shipping. If gall is present in the tuber, it will show up in the early stages of eye formation, as they are both very obvious on active eye growth if already present.
3. Inspect your tubers when you first get them. Don’t leave them in a box in the corner by your baseboard heater and open them up 3 weeks later. They are a living, breathing plant, and should be looked over, then put in a cool, dark area until ready to plant. Where you keep your tubers for your geographical location and microclimate is totally dependent on your specific scenario. We plant our tubers in February. Why? We grow almost exclusively in poly-tunnels, and have found that planting them early gives us an earlier, and longer crop yield with our plants. We are in a fairly temperate area, zone 8a, and have had little issue with this. However, what we plant outside, doesn’t get planted until after our last frost, typically mid- to late-April or early May. Our tubers have survived in the ground, in tunnels, into the low teens, but do not do well in our water-logged PNW soils. Knowing your area and taking the appropriate precautions to be successful with your dahlias is your responsibility. Some of this is trial and error and learning what works best for you. Again, this is different for each grower. I have friends who grow exclusively in containers on a back patio in an urban environment. Very different from our country farm setting. It is not the grower’s responsibility to safeguard your tubers once they are in your hands.

 

Timing: More importantly, why we wait to sell our tubers until March. I firmly believe the only reason to pre-purchase tubers is to support a grower/farm that is doing that for cash flow during a slow time. There is nothing wrong with that as a business model. No one will ship tubers until it is time to plant them, and so they still have to make it through the winter, in storage. We wait to wake up our tubers in February, let them eye up, so that we can fully inspect the entire body by hand and feel, as well as visually inspect each tuber for a healthy eye. Then, and only then, is that tuber packaged to be shipped, and counted for available inventory. That number is always different from what we store away in fall and winter. Some tubers are storage divas, and those we take extra precautions with, as we have had some issues with them in the past. I do not want to have any upset customers that are unable to get a desired or hard to get variety because we oversold tubers before actually knowing what we have available. It is incredibly important to us that you get healthy tubers with a visible eye, and confirmed to be the variety we say it is, and is a job we take very seriously. Please know, the dahlias we send out to each and every person make the grade as a tuber we would plant on our own property, and we are proud of the quality of tubers we offer.

HAVE FUN! Growing dahlias, and any plant, for that matter, is going to take a different path for each person, and figuring out what you like, and what works, takes time, and experimentation. If you are heart set on a very specific dahlia variety that is incredibly hard to procure on the market, be patient. And when you finally get it, order several. They might not all grow. For every precaution we take, and all the time we spend inspecting our tubers to make sure we are only planting the best stock (healthy body, strong neck, visible eye) and giving them every opportunity to succeed, still, not every dahlia grows. Rather than let that frustrate you, understanding that in both the growing and storage process, there is some loss, and build in security around that. Ours is to set aside some extras to replace any that just don’t sprout up for whatever reason, and to store more than we need in case of loss in storage. Why? We know it’s going to happen.

Also, some varieties are just not as vigorous or robust as others. We have our eye on several that are beautiful flowers, but the tubers are tricky in storage. This is not said to discourage you…just to be realistic.

Every grower is going to tell you their top 5, or whatever is their favorite variety, based on completely different reasons. This is a marketing gimmick, again, nothing wrong, just personal choices.

Here is what I look for in a dahlia variety:

1. Vigor in sprouting - not taking too long to push up stems. I don’t want to wait until September to see a plant.
2. Healthy plant - I don’t want spindly stems, or weak attachments from stem to flower head. I want stems that hold flowers upright on the plant and in the vase, and flowers that can manage being handled. Also, plants that can manage periods of drought/heat, or severe weather conditions. Even better? Plants that hold themselves up without major staking.
3. Robust producers - Dahlias that bloom their heads off all season long, and can handle hard cuts, over and over.
4. Viable tuber production - not just loads of tubers, but viable tubers with strong neck/head attachments and visible eyes, as well as a complete body.
5. Storage capacity - tubers that hold their own in storage. We have several storage divas, that just test me every winter, and they are not my favorite for this one factor, but we continue to grow as they check off every other box.

As far as color palette, dahlia type - this is a completely personal choice, and you should grow what you love, as that will be what is motivating and exciting for you.