Grow Your Own Dahlias!
Dahlia Tubers for Sale - Available Nationally!
This year our favorite dahlia tubers are available to home gardeners and farmers across the country. These are some of our favorite varieties that we’ve been growing on our farm for years. They all make excellent cut flowers and are all very productive. All our tubers are Certified Organic and are now available on our website. We will be shipping the tubers in early April.
See our tubers for sale here.
How to Grow Dahlias
If you love flowers you should try growing dahlias! They may seem very intimidating but they are really not much harder to grow than other flowers. Dahlias originally come from Mexico and the tubers (roots) were a staple food product of the Aztec people. I haven’t tried eating it myself yet but I hear it’s similar to tapioca or cassava.
Dahlias are annual flowers, meaning that they wont survive the winter outside in most regions unless they are protected. Most gardeners dig up their tubers in the fall and store them in a basement, garage or anywhere else it will stay cool but above freezing. When you dig them up you will notice the one tuber you planted will turn into multiple tubers! That’s one of the great things about dahlias, they multiply! You can quickly build up your stock of tubers to expand your garden or share your tubers with friends and family! You’ll need to divide your tubers before replanting. Luckily there are a lot of helpful youtube videos on how to do this like this great video.
Here’s some tips for growing great dahlias:
Plant them in well drained soil with high organic matter and in full sun.
Plant them outside after the danger of frost has past. In Maryland this is around Mother’s Day.
We space our tubers about 12” apart in the ground. The eye of the tuber faces up. Plant the tuber so they top of the tuber is about 1” below the top of the soil line.
Do not overwater dahlias while they are small plants. They really need very little water until they reach about 6” tall.
Dahlias can grow 4 feet tall and sometimes taller. You may want to stake your dahlias keep them from falling over. On our farm we use stakes and twine. Another good option for a home gardener might be using tomato cages.
12-16 weeks from planting they will start to flower and will continue to flower until frost.
Enjoy them in your garden or cut the flowers to enjoy them inside. Keep them in clean water to extend the vase life.
In the Fall, after frost but before the ground freezes, dig up your tubers to store them for next year. Some people will clean the tubers by hosing them off before storage but we have found they store better with dirt attached to them making them less likely to dry out in storage.
You will want to keep them in a cool, dark space with high humidity for the winter. We keep ours in our basement. We make sure they are completely dry before storing them so they don’t rot. There are a couple methods to store them. You can put them in a crate with wood shavings and newspaper so they can breath but are not completely exposed to air which will dry them out. You can also divid your dahlias and then store them in gallon ziplock bags with some wood shavings or perlite . When we do this we don’t seal the bag. We keep it open so the dahlias can breath. I’ll check on them occasionally through the winter. If I notice moisture is building up in the bag I open the bag some more to get more air flow. If they seem like they are drying out and getting hard to the touch I might seal the bag a little to retain more moisture.
I hope this helps! Dahlias are my second favorite flowers (after tulips!) and I think all gardeners should give them a try. You’ll be so please with yourself once they start blooming.
Click here to find our tuber store.
