Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if my tuber will grow?
Healthy tubers come from healthy plants and soil, which I monitor each year for signs of bacteria or viruses. When digging, storing, and dividing my tubers, I operate by a simple code: If in doubt, throw it out! I clean my clippers regularly during the dividing process and do my best to make sure that each tuber has a visible eye before I send it to you, ensuring that you can visibly see that you are starting with a healthy tuber.
Help! My little eye/sprout has fallen off!
It will grow back! You haven't damaged the tuber irrevocably and you will still be able to grow a beautiful plant with lots of blooms. Whew!
Where should I plant?
Find a spot that has at least six hours of direct sunlight, and soil that can easily drain. Dig a hole that is between 4 - 6" deep, and place the tuber into the hole, sprouting eye up. Cover gently and only water if the soil becomes hard and dried out. Dahlia's do not like "wet feet", and watering too much early on will cause the tubers to rot.
How much should I water?
In the early days after planting, hardly at all. Check to make sure the soil isn't dried out, and only water if it is. Once you see a little leafy sprout, you can gently water every other day or so. Remember, the goal is not to have the soil be wet for hours. Once you have several leaf pairs growing, you can start to water more frequently, starting with once a day and moving up as the soil/leaves show need. Here in Utah, I plant in raised beds and use a drip irrigation system. We don't get a lot of rain, and I have to account for the soil drying out faster than if they were in the ground. During the hottest parts of the summer, I use a pulse watering system of three times a day for ten to fifteen minutes, depending on how dry the soil is or how the leaves of the plant look.
My tuber never sprouted or grew :'(
This is my personal worst case scenario, and why I work so hard to make sure that you have the highest chance of success. If your tuber never sprouted, please send me an email with a photo and I will give you a full refund of in-store credit to be used during the next season. If your tuber rotted or if there were any other troubles during your growing season, I feel you. Dahlia growing can be challenging, and I have personally killed more than my share of tubers. Please don't give up, and do try again next year! I cannot not offer store credit in these cases.
Should I fertilize, or...?
After planting I do sprinkle some bone meal around the planting site to help feed the hungry tubers. I don't recommend putting much into the hole that you've dug, as I did this without problems until one year when the bone meal encased the tubers so they couldn't grow. Live and learn, lol (facepalm.) ​ When the plants are small, I fertilize weekly with Alaska Fish Fertilizer, a 5 -1-1 liquid bottle of death that the dahlia's love and my husband hates, lol. ​ When the plants are blooming, I fertilize weekly using the Alaska MoreBloom liquid fertilizer, that doesn't smell like death, and that helps the plants crank out blooms all season long.
How do I pinch my plant?
When your dahlia is between 8 - 12" tall, or when it has more than 4 pairs of leaves growing on either side, you count up to the 4th pair, and pinch or nip off the rest of the plant, leaving you with a circular stem or sometimes a stem hole.
Pinching off the top of my baby plant feels mean and unnecessary.
Should I do it?
Short answer: YES. Long answer: If you are growing your plants for their flowers, and you want to cut lots of flowers to bring inside or to your friends, pinching is important. It forces the plant to not just grow upright, it now has to grow upright and laterally, which forces more stalks, which means more flowers. It also forces the plant to create a wider center of gravity, meaning that it won't fall over as easily when it's blooming. I do have a friend who never pinches, and she's perfectly happy with her flower quantities. Her plants do topple over as well, but to each their own :).
What is staking, and should I do it?
Staking is using some kind of structure to support your dahlias as they grow. I have tried lots of different methods: wooden stakes, tomato cages, tying them to a fence/trellis - my preferred method (because I plant lots and in rows) is to use netting zip tied to T-stakes for the plants to grow through. ​ Do you need it? Probably. We get some pretty wild thunderstorms, plus I live in a windy area, and without any form of support the dahlias will topple. To be clear, toppling will not kill the dahlias. They will then start growing up from wherever they land, even if the majority of the stalk has split.