Hey guys, today I am going to be doing a couple of things with dahlias. I’m going to be potting them up so I can take cuttings, and then I’m going to take cuttings off of some that I potted up a few weeks ago. I’m going to show you how to do all of that. Now, there’s a couple of different ways you can buy your dahlia tubers, and it just depends on what country you’re in and where you’re buying them from. A lot of British gardeners buy clumps like this. If you buy these from Home Depot or any of the big box stores, Costco, they’ll come in clumps like this. If you buy online from American Dahlia Growers, typically what you’re going to get is individual tubers like this. The way it works, the same, I don’t know that there’s any advantage, one versus the other. The clumps might have a few more possibilities of sprouts, so you might get a little bit bushier plant. Well, the next time I went to Costco, guess what I found? Dahlias in reds, yellows, oranges. So, I’m going to be planting these up for the tropical garden. I also got some named varieties from dahlias.com, which is Swan Island Dahlias, and they are: Chilson’s Pride, Helen Richmond, Missy Sue, Pink Petticoat, and Rebecca Lynn. So, let’s go ahead and pot those first because those are the single dahlias, uh, tubers, and I want to show you the structure of this dahlia tuber. And you could have a clump, it’s going to have all of these things in any viable tuber.
So, if you have a clump of them, it could have two viable tubers, it could have five viable tubers, or more. But basically, when you look at a dahlia tuber, you’re going to see the main part here, the fat part, that’s just the body of the tuber. That’s the main part of the tuber. Then the thin area is called the neck. And I guess if this is the neck, then this is the head. And then this here is the eye or sprout. If it’s further along, and tubers can have one eye or one sprout, or they can have several just on one tuber. And each one of those sprouts is going to produce basically its own plant. So, if you have a clump or you have one tuber that’s got several eyes or sprouts on it, you’re going to get a bushier plant right off the bat. So, let’s go ahead and pot these up. It absolutely could not be any easier. You only need to see this once, you’ll never have to read this article again. All right, so I’ve got these all laid out here. And basically all we need to do is just dig a tiny little hole there, place the tuber in, kind of at a 45-degree angle, with the neck and head sticking out of the potting soil. It’s that easy. And just make sure that the neck and head are sticking out. If your tuber comes with or grows roots on it before you plant it, just make sure to kind of get those down in there, make sure they’re all covered up. That’s going to get them off to an even faster start. This one’s got quite a sprout on it. Okay, that’s it for those.
Now, as far as the clumps go, there is a lot on here that we’re not going to waste room. The more you stick in the pot, the more you have to bury it with more potting soil. You can actually plant these in a tray like this, just line them up. That’s what I’m going to do so I can show you that way of doing it. But we’re not going to keep all this on here because all these that are hanging and dangling loose, they’re not helping the plant. They’re going to probably rot, and they could hurt the plant. So, any of them that are loose, we’re just going to snip off. Just do the shake test. If it’s loose, like this one here, snip it off. You can see right here there is a sprout deep down in there. So, there’s nothing else hanging loose on this one. It might look like you’re cutting a bunch off, but ultimately, as long as it has one tuber left on it, it’s good, it’ll work. Like I said, these loose ones aren’t going to do the plant any favors anyway. There’s another one. And you know if you grow these in your own yard and save them for the next year, you probably won’t have this many loose ones. These have been, you know, traveling who knows how many miles. You can also cut off all of these, you know, ridiculous tiny roots as well. Don’t need all that going on. So, I’m going to take care of the rest of these, and then we’ll start planting these out in the trays. All right, now it’s time to get these planted in these trays. And I want to stress that planting them in trays, planting them in pots, it doesn’t matter. You want a potting mix that is on the dry side. So, if you pre-moisten it, then plant your dahlias in it, you probably aren’t going to water it again for quite some time. Dahlias are killed mostly in the beginning before they have roots with too much water.
They can dry out to almost bone dry, and there’s enough water stored in the tubers to get it through to the next watering. However, if it’s too wet, it’s going to be very, very easy for those tubers to just rot away, and all of a sudden you’ll look, and you’ll dig, and there’ll be nothing there. So, always err on the side of dry versus moist. It’s completely different than when you’re starting seeds. So, the varieties that came in this Costco bag, and these are all named varieties, whereas the ones I did a couple weeks ago, um, they were just a couple of them were named, but then they were just named like lilac mix or something like that. This is Poo, P-O-O-H, Whitman’s Best or Whitman’s Best, Maxine, and American Son. I’ve grown Poo before a long time ago.
All right, so now we’re gonna start planting these in here. You’re gonna find the stem that was there, growing the plant last year, you kind of place that in the upward position just to help the plant out a bit. See, there’s a big sprout coming up there. It’s a little deep. That might need its own pot. This is the old stem . Just take some potting soil, cover up the tuber parts, try to leave the necks and the heads exposed if possible. If you cover them up a tiny bit, that’s okay. The sprouts still going to come through. And I’ll plant this extra one in a pot of its own. I’m glad this one had a sprout because there wasn’t one tuber on there that wasn’t loose.
So, I’m hoping this can sprout and just live off of what’s in that main part of the trunk, and then I can take cuttings of it, and whether or not the tuber rocks or not, it won’t matter. This… Okay, so over here, I’m running out of room under this grow light and on the heat mat. So, I’m going to be taking, well, I’m going to take the cuttings of the dahlias first, and then I’m going to take the dahlias that have sprouted, and the tomatoes, and the eggplant, and move them all out into the cold frame outside to harden off. We’re completely out of our frost time now. There’s no nights under 42 degrees in the 10-day forecast, so I think we’re good. And that’ll give me room to put these on there. But let’s now start taking cuttings of the ones that I potted up about three weeks ago. Okay, I do want to add that dahlias cannot go outside until you are well past your frost last frost date. So, make sure you know when that is, and then you can start these indoors. If you’re not going to take cuttings, start them indoors maybe three to four weeks before your last frost date. That way they’re ready to go out. They’ve already got some growth on them. If you’re going to take cuttings, you can start that six to eight weeks before your last frost date. That’ll give you time to take the cuttings, have them grow back, and then you can put them outside. And you’ll have the cuttings rooting inside, and by the time they’re rooted, you’ll be well past your last frost date. All right, so these are the dahlias that I did three weeks ago, and some are tall enough to… They’ve just about all got sprouts, whether they’re tiny little red ones like you see there just coming out or I think this is probably the winner here, this one or this one. There’s a couple of different rules of thought on how to take dahlia cuttings. Some people say to use like a sharp blade like an exacto knife and slice off the cutting with some of the tuber attached to it. Then some other people, like me, say just snap off or cut off the stem and don’t touch the tuber. And here’s why I say that. It might, they might root a tiny bit easier having a little bit of the tuber on them or the heel, what you call it. But dahlias are pretty easy to root anyway. And so, what you have to know is if you cut off that eye of the tuber where this is growing out, it’s not going to put out another one. If you snap this off or cut it off, it’ll put out another sprout right at the base of where you just cut that off. So, if you have one tuber that’s got four sprouts on it, okay, you could take three cuttings, taking out the eye part of the tuber with it, and you still have one left to grow as a plant. And then three cuttings that you’re going to have now new plants of. But if you’ve only got one and you cut out the eye, and you take a cutting of that one, you could have just left it on the tuber to grow. So, in my opinion, dahlias are super easy to sprout or to root.
So, just snap them off or cut them off right above the tuber. So, it’s a pretty simple process. We’re going to take this stem, follow it down to the tuber, and right above there where it comes out, I’m gonna slice it. And the roots are going to come out of this node right here. So, you can slice it again right under that node. And then we’re going to take off the leaves down here. We’re also going to take off these. You want just a very small amount of leaves left because it’s going to lose moisture out of these leaves. So, the less leaves it has to support, the better. If these were even bigger leaves, I might even cut these last leaves in half, but these aren’t that big. Now, some people use rooting hormone powder or gel. I don’t bother with that extra step and expense because, like I said, dahlias are pretty easy to root. But if you want to go ahead with that extra step, feel free. I’m putting these in some Jiffy cups that I had left over. You can put them in anything that you want as long as there’s drainage. I’m just going to make a little hole with my pen and then bury the cutting up to just below where these leaves start. So, right about there. And you want the stems that you’re going to take cuttings on, you want them to be about three to four inches tall and have about three sets of leaves. Even if that third set is that brand new growth coming out there. Now, unlike the tubers, these do need to stay well watered. They need to stay moist. They need good drainage, but they need to be moist at all times. In fact, I’m going to grab an old humidity dome and I’m going to cover these over, put them under the grow light. They need light. And then that humidity zone will hold that moisture in there until they start to root. And you’re gonna know when they’ve rooted because, well, you’re either going to see roots coming out the holes or you’re going to see that growth tip start to grow and make more leaves. At that point, they’re rooted. The heat mat is going to help with this. I’ve got a heat mat set up here and a grow light. That’s the best setup you can do this in. A cold frame with a heat mat outside. So, you’re taking advantage of the natural sun. You don’t need a grow light, but a heat mat is definitely still going to help. All right. And now I have room for the new ones. Okay, so the takeaways from today, the most important things to remember are for the tubers and to get them to sprout, keep the soil on the extremely dry side, just barely, barely moist. For the cuttings, you want to really make sure they have a moist environment.
So, we’re going to use, we’re going to water them, and we’re going to use a humidity dome until they show signs of growth. And then you can take that humidity dome off, probably a couple of weeks. This is such an easy process, and it’s just the best way to make the most of your money. Dahlia tubers aren’t cheap. And so, if you can get them to sprout over and over again, sometimes you can get five to ten sprouts off of one tuber. And at that point, if you’ve gotten 10 sprouts off of it, the tuber may not produce a good plant after that. So, you can throw it away or if you have room, you can do it. But if you don’t, if you’re short on space, just throw the tuber away. You’ve got five or ten new plants of that same variety.
So, and the best part is each one of these cuttings that roots and grows this year will grow to full size. It will bloom just like from a tuber, and it will also produce more tubers for you next year or this year in the fall when you dig them up.
