From Tubers to Blooms: A Practical Guide to Growing Dahlias

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In this episode of The Evergreen Thumb, host Erin Hoover interviews Ed Adams, a WSU Extension Master Gardener from Clallam County, who shares his extensive knowledge about growing dahlias. Ed recounts how his passion for gardening began with growing flowers for hummingbirds who visited his bird feeder and grew into managing over 600 dahlia varieties in his Sequim garden, where the climate is ideal for these long-blooming flowers. He also highlights the diverse forms of dahlias, from ball-shaped to dinner plate varieties, emphasizing that there’s a type of dahlia to suit everyone’s taste.

• The American Dahlia Society (Growing information or find your local society).
• Virus Diseases of Dahlias by WSU
• Article: Our Common Sense Dahlia Virus Protocol
• Articles about Dahlias at Epic Gardening
• Swan Island Dahlias’s YouTube Channel
• How To Grow Dahlias • Evelyn’s Garden
• Book “Floret Farm’s Discovering Dahlias” by Erin Benzakein Floret Farm is a nationally known flower farm and seed company in the heart of Skagit Valley, Washington.
• Mastering Slug Control – Episode 70
• WSU Extension Clallam County Master Gardener Program
• Clallam Master Gardener Facebook

Erin Hoover (00:00)

Welcome to The Evergreen Thumb episode 73. My guest today is Ed Adams, and Ed is a WSU Extension Master Gardener in Clallam County. And he’s here today to tell us all about growing dahlias. This episode has a lot of resources, so I encourage you to check out our website at theevergreenthumb.org and check out our episode list. We will have a blog post with links to all of the resources that he shared with us. So Ed, thanks for joining me today. Welcome.

Ed Adams (00:35)
Thank you.

Guest Introduction

Erin Hoover (00:35)
To start off, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you do as a Master Gardener?

Ed Adams (00:40)
Okay, a little background. I’m a retired PE teacher from Seattle Public Schools. I taught K to five and sort of non-traditional PE. It was like, sort of acrobats and circus arts, and I retired a few years ago. And my wife, quite a while ago, had bought me a hummingbird feeder. That’s kind of what got me into the whole gardening and, you know, led to fuchsias and beebalm and salvias

And then we moved from Seattle to Sequim in ’22, yeah, ’22. And in ’23, I took the Master Gardener class, and I’ve been super involved ever since. Just got my 1,000-hour pin. So I’ve been pretty busy.  I’m also into Japanese maples. I have a couple of hundred Japanese maples.

Erin Hoover (01:23)
Wow.

Ed Adams (01:34)
And about six to 700 dahlia plants at my house. And then I take care of the dahlias over at Woodcock Garden in Sequim. I’ve done stuff with the botanical gardens in the Sequim area as well. So yeah, just, just love it all. So lots of fun.

The Allure of Dahlias: A Personal Connection

Erin Hoover (01:51)
So why dahlias in particular?

Ed Adams (01:53)
When I was a kid, my grandmother up in Northern Alberta had a huge pollinating garden, and it included stuff like dahlias and some of those things. And she had a lot of dahlias, and I just remember them being so beautiful. Then one of my sisters was always out there working with her, and she got the green thumb from my grandma. And then my mother, as well, liked dahlias and just loved gardening.

I love dahlias because they bloom basically from mid to end of June all the way up until Thanksgiving, often. So not just the two weeks, like tulips or other flowers. I love irises, but yeah, they don’t bloom very long. So many plants don’t bloom very long.

Erin Hoover (02:32)
Nice. Oh irises. They don’t bloom very long. So what does managing 600-plus dahlia varieties look like in your garden?

Ed Adams (02:51)
Yeah, I kind of do the drifts. So I have like one, one bed that’ll be like mostly all pink and white, and then another bed that’ll be like mostly yellow. So I’ve got like seven different beds and,  yeah, it’s a lot of work, but it’s sure is a lot of fun. You know, you drive down our road and you can, can see the dahlias from quite a ways away, and you know, everything else, but yeah, it’s, it’s a lot of work, but it’s, so much fun. And then we don’t sell them or anything. My wife takes bouquets in to work every day for her coworkers, and everybody’s all smiles.

Growing Dahlias in Sequim’s Climate

Erin Hoover (03:29)
What is it about the climate on the peninsula or in the Sequim area that makes dahlias such a good choice?

Ed Adams (03:37)
Well, know, dahlias love sun and like to be dry. So, you know, it doesn’t get too hot here. I mean, you know, rarely, rarely do we get over 80 once in a while. So they don’t get scorched. They don’t like a lot of rain. So we don’t get a lot of rain out here. You can control it with your, with your hose. Very late frost, like I said earlier, frost is, it was all the way, you know, up to Thanksgiving.

And then a lot of people in that area just leave their dahlias in the ground over winter. They’re just such a great flower. I mean, it’s like there’s a dahlia for everybody because there are so many different varieties and, and, you know, they’re long bloomers, they attract pollinators, and  Sequim is just a great place to grow them.

Dahlia Forms

Erin Hoover (04:24)
I know there’s a range of forms as far as the style of the blossom. Can you tell us a little bit about some of those?

Ed Adams (04:28)
Yeah. Yeah, we’ve got, you know, lots of different forms. I recently joined the Dahlia Society in Kitsap County and then also down in Tacoma. I know it’s a little ways to drive, but yeah, it’s worth it. ‘Cause you know, there are all these different classifications. You can get some that look like a cactus. My favorite are either the balls. They look like a little ball, and they’re super dense, or there’s like a pom-pom.

There’s formal and decorative, and informal decorative. There’s just a whole bunch of different varieties. And you get the ones that are like the dinner plate that are, you know, seven to 10 inches across. So if people really like those, my sister loves those. Just a big variety. There are the little poms, the little tiny poms, which are cool. You get some that grow less than 10 inches, and get others that grow six or seven feet tall. So yeah, so there’s a dahlia for everybody.

Erin Hoover (05:28)
Yeah, for some reason, the dinner plate form always stuck out in my memory just because of how huge they can be.

 Ed Adams (05:35)
They’re like majestic, you know, they’re just this great big huge flower, so it’s super cool. Of course, you know, they don’t do really well if you have a lot of rain because they get rain, and then they just fall right over.

That’s just the drawback of having the big huge one. So yeah, I love the poms or the balls because they’re super dense. You know, it looks like some architects, you know, design them. That’s super cool.

Erin Hoover (06:05)
When I lived in the Seattle area, I remember I basically grew them as annuals because they would rot, and I didn’t ever want to dig them up.

Ed Adams (06:10)
Yeah. Yep, yep. Yeah, it’s a lot of work to dig them up.

Choosing and Preparing Dahlia Tubers

Erin Hoover (06:19)
For listeners who would be interested in growing dahlias, choosing tubers versus cuttings versus buying starts, what are the advantages or disadvantages?

Ed Adams (06:26)
Yeah, I mean, the best way to go if you’re a beginner, and even for most people, is just to buy the tubers or, you know, or horse trade them. The little starts are really tough. You get them in a pot there, they’re not as easy as well. And then to try to propagate them is a lot of work. So, and then as far as buying the tubers, I mean, you can pick them up at, you know, the big box stores.

And local farmers, there are lots of dahlia farmers or the dahlia societies also have, you know, big sales in the spring. That’s actually my recommendation is to get them from the local farmers or from the dahlia societies, because they’re generally healthy. The big box store ones are shipped over here from the Netherlands. And then often there’s, you know, diseases or viruses associated with that.

Yeah, tubers and then, you know, doing the horse trading with friends and stuff as well. Just got to be careful. don’t, you know, bring home stuff, you know, a virus or a spider mite or something like that.

Erin Hoover (07:27)
That was going to be my next question: how do you know if the tubers are healthy? What do you look for if it’s not a healthy tuber?

Ed Adams (07:35)
Well, you can feel the density of them, you know, if they’re squishy or they’re shriveled up, you want them nice and firm and plump, and they should feel kind of like a raw sweet potato. That’s kind of how I always envision it. And then if you’re not sure, I always do what I call pre-sprouting. So I put them in like, just a little garden tray, a couple of inches of soil down, like potting soil, no fertilizer, or even peat moss. I put them in there, lay them down horizontally.

If you can see the eye, a lot of times, even if you can’t see the eye, you put them in there, and then you cover them up with a little bit of soil, and then you leave them there for a couple of weeks. And then if there are any viruses or any issues, those will show up there, and you’re not contaminating the soil where they’re gonna get planted.

Another good thing about that, too, is that you can see if they’re actually viable. So because you know, sometimes you get one and you know, the crown is a little broken off or the neck is weak and, you know, it’ll never sprout.

Dahlia Sun Requirements

Erin Hoover (08:36)
So you mentioned the sun, how much they like the sun.

Ed Adams (08:36)
So yeah. Yeah, they like about six hours, at least six hours of full sun every day. So, so if you got that shady spot, I’d recommend not doing it. And yeah, so that’s another advantage of living in Sequim. We get a lot of sun here. Get that blue sky.

Erin Hoover (08:55)
So what other conditions for growing them, like the soil or water?

Ed Adams (08:58)
So yeah, when you’re going to select where to plant them, you’re looking for good soil, not too much sand. Of course, you don’t want too much clay because if they get a lot of sand, it’s going to dry too quickly. If you get a lot of clay, it’s going to hold the water, and you get that tuber rot. That may be what you experienced in Seattle when you were there. And of course, don’t do any amendments until you do your soil tests. So I recommend always doing the soil tests.

Erin Hoover (09:03)
Mm-hmm.

Ed Adams (09:27)
Another thing you can do when you’re selecting or deciding is you can either find a mound or build a mound or a berm because the elevation helps with drainage. Over in the Sequim Botanical Garden, they have a terraced area, so the dahlias are right at the top, so they never rot. And they leave them in all winter long, and they never rot, but you know, because they’re draining, even gravity is pulling all that water down, so they’re not sitting in water. So, of course, in the summertime, they have to do a lot of heavy watering.

Erin Hoover (09:58)
Yeah, where I’m at now, I have very fast-draining soil anyway. So I haven’t tried to plant dahlias down here just because we are scorching hot in the summer.

Ed Adams (09:59)
Let’s see, either… Okay, yeah. Where are you in Olympia?

Erin Hoover (10:13)
I’m just south of Olympia.

Ed Adams (10:15)
Yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, you’re hotter in the summer, and you’re quite a bit colder in the winter. So…

Erin Hoover (10:19)
Mm, yeah, it can definitely get down into the teens on occasion down here.

Ed Adams (10:24)
So, and then when you decide where you’re gonna plant them, you wanna have just really loose, well-draining soil. You know, cause the roots need oxygen, and you know, everything else, all those little creatures need lots of oxygen. You can also mix in a little cow or steer manure in the fall. So, you know, good aged and that’ll be a good preparation for it. When to plant in the Pacific Northwest, you know, generally you’re looking for that last frost.

And it’s most of the time, it’s after Mother’s Day. We did plant a little earlier here this year because we had quite a hot spring up here. Last week, and we were 80 degrees for a couple of days. So, planting, we’re still thinking about planting, talking about planting.  Space your tubers about 12 to 18 inches apart. If you have winds, you can plant them even a little bit closer. And that’s what I do.

Ed Adams (11:20)
I plant them just a little bit closer because then they hold each other up. Plant them horizontally, four to six inches deep. In fact, we planted about a dozen of them this morning over in the Woodcock Garden. No need to water your plants for a while or when you plant them. If the soil is really dry, then you can get it a little wet. And then the tubers, they’ll bloom anywhere between 60 and 90 days.

Planting and Watering Practices for Dahlias

Erin Hoover (11:50)
So, are there any special watering practices like you said, you don’t really need to water them so much this time of year, like you do later in the summer?

Ed Adams (11:58)
Yeah, they don’t like to sit in wet feet, but they love to be watered. They’re heavy feeders. So start watering once that little shoot like sticks up and then keep the soil kind of even and not soggy. Deep watering means you know, somewhere between eight to 10 inches you want to get down. And I personally do it about two or three times a week.

And different types of watering, drip systems, or soaker hoses are a great way to do it because they do it nice and slow. They seep in really deep. I like overhead sprinklers. We use an overhead sprinkler. People are like, “Oh..”, they’re thinking roses, they’re going to get like black spot or something. But yeah, with dahlias, a lot of the farms do overhead watering.

And then what else? Hand watering. I’ve got spots where I have to hand water, and it works fine, but you just got to really make sure that you water them enough because it’s easy not to get enough water when you do the hand watering. But the good thing about hand watering, and we’ll talk about this when we get the pests, is that you can water up from the ground, so you can spray the underside of the leaves.

Maintenance and Care During the Growing Season

Ed Adams (13:10)
Did we talk about staking?

Erin Hoover (13:13)
We haven’t, no.

Ed Adams (13:14)
Yeah, so when you’re planting your dahlias, the best time to put your stakes in is right then, because then you don’t damage anything. I mean, I’ve seen all kinds of stuff people use, like T-posts and then some kind of string. They’ll use just wooden stakes.

I’ve used tomato cages.  I’ve seen the Hortonova, you know, those horizontal trellises, they’re about six inches apart, those worked really well. And then the dahlias will grow up and kind of hold themselves up. ‘Cause yeah, if you don’t stake them and if they’re, you know, too far apart, they’ll often just fall down. So, you’ll get that one big heavy rain and down they go, or you get a big wind, and they’ll fall over, especially those dinner plates. So, yeah.

Erin Hoover (14:05)
Yeah. Okay, so what about maintenance during the growing season?

Ed Adams (14:11)
Yeah, so when they start growing, this is really hard for most of us. When they start growing, when they get about three to five leaves high, so that’s still pretty short, you’ll want to pinch them. That means you’re just going to go up and you’re going to pinch off the top part. That way, you’re going to get a nice bushy plant with lots of flowers. And people are like, my dahlia is just starting to grow, and you’re telling me to you know, pinch it back. But it really does help.

That’s one good thing. And then fertilize.  So after you first plant them, about two to four weeks, you’ll go in, and you’ll see the sprouts have emerged, and they’ve stuck up above the ground, and you’ll give them their first fertilizing.  I like to use like organic stuff, you know, Dr. Earth, and you know, it’s a low nitrogen. There are quite a few people who use tomato and vegetable fertilizer. I’ve used Alaska fish oil quite a bit.

And then you’ll just continue to fertilize throughout the summer, about every three to four weeks, and all the way up until about the end of August, because then they’ll start, you don’t want them to keep going too hard. They’ve got enough food already by that point. The other good thing about fertilizing is it helps build up resistance to damaging insects or diseases. And then we mentioned briefly about cow manure and steer manure.

Just be cautious because if you get them too hot, they’re going to burn your plants. Like horse manure and chicken manure, I would never use because the nitrogen is way too high up there. And they also contain weed seeds. But yeah, cow manure, steer manure is a good way.

Weeding, you’re going to be doing quite a bit of weeding for a little bit until they get bushed out.

Erin Hoover (15:50)
Mm-hmm.

Ed Adams (16:02)
You know, the weeds will rob the water and the nutrients from the dahlia. Hand weeding is the only way you can do it for dahlias. There are no exceptions. You can’t use tools, and you definitely can’t use any kind of pesticide or pre-emergent herbicide because it’ll kill your dahlia because the dahlias they have these string roots, these hair roots that grow off of them, and they’ll soak up everything.

Deadheading. So throughout the year, once they start blooming, you’re gonna go out, and you’re gonna either cut the flowers for bouquets or for giving to people, or you’re gonna remove the spent blooms. The more you cut and the more you deadhead, the better your plant is gonna grow and the more flowers you’re gonna get.

Common Pests and Challenges in Growing Dahlias

Erin Hoover (16:46)
What are some of the common pest issues?

Ed Adams (16:49)
Yeah, so we talked about horse trading. So I remember a few years back, I was doing some horse trading with somebody, and I got one, and she gave it to me in a pot. I think it had sat a little bit dry for a while, and I brought it home, and I’m like, it just didn’t look right. And then all of a sudden, I have the dreaded spider mite. And spider mites are not fun.  

Slugs, snails, you’re gonna start treating for that right away. Earwigs, they just do a lot of damage. They’ll chew the leaves, and sometimes they’ll chew the flowers.

For the slugs and snails, like I say, I start like we planted today, and I put a little bit of it around, know, and Sluggo and Cory’s, those are considered organic. You can also use the beer traps. And I saw you had somebody on that did a slug and snail, that was really cool to watch.  Spider mites are the number one issue for dahlia growers.

So they’ll just start at the bottom, and they’ll basically ruin your plants. They’ll go all the way down into the roots. So if you see that you have spider mites, I actually start treating for them right away. As soon as they get about two to three inches tall, I’ll do a little bit of spraying with them. And then once your plant starts getting big, if you get spider mites, you just start stripping off the bottom foliage.

So you know, it gets rid of it, and I put it in a bag and throw it in the trash. So I don’t keep it on my property.

Ways to control spider mites. You can use insecticidal soaps,  miticides,  horticulture oils, and sprays.

Earwigs are another common pest. And Sluggo Plus actually helps with earwigs. So not Sluggo, but Sluggo Plus, it’s got something in there.

And then you got your natural pests. It’s like on my property, I’ve got frogs and toads and ladybugs. And during the summer, I get the praying mantis, and they help with all those things.  

Vole Damage. A lot of people experience a lot of voles, not moles, but voles. Voles are the ones that eat organic material. Moles eat, you know, flesh. So, like worms and grubs. And I think the best way to get rid of voles is just little mouse traps. And I’ve tried lots of different things. I had a colony when I moved to our place, and I’ve gradually gotten rid of it.

But, you know, you start with the peanut butter, and when that stops working, then you can do a little Wonder Bread dipped in ranch or Wonder Bread dipped in bacon grease. And yeah, I’ve caught a lot of voles. I don’t have that problem.  

Natural predators, we have owls that live on our property and, of course, hawks, possums, garter snakes, newts, and even coyotes. I’ve seen them trying to get the voles.  

So those are kind of the main pests, and those are some of the controls for those pests.

Dahlia Diseases and Prevention

Erin Hoover (19:59)
So are there any issues? You mentioned viruses, but what about other disease considerations, and how do you prevent them?

Ed Adams (20:03)
Yeah, the American Dahlia Society says that 87 % of all dahlias have some sort of virus, which was kind of surprising. And the most popular one is called the mosaic virus. And it’s more this, it just doesn’t look good. Your leaves look, you know, sort of patchy and blotchy with yellow spots on them. And, you know, people want them to look and see a nice green leaf.

 And then of course there’s the crown gall or leafy gall, and if you have the crown gall or the leafy gall, that’s when you dig up that whole area, and you kind of quarantine it off for a little while because it’ll spread. If you plant something else there, it’ll end up getting… And yeah, you get these big knobby swellings of galls, and it looks kind of like cottage cheese. Yeah, lots of distortions.

So, know, when you’re doing your horse trading, just, you know, make sure you know who you’re getting them from. And if you don’t, like I said, you know, do the pre-sprouting, stick it in a self-contained area for just a little while until it makes sure you don’t have that.

Powdery mildew. Sequim is a little bit windy, so we don’t really have that problem in Sequim. But a lot of people with dahlias will get powdery mildew. And I mean, it doesn’t do anything to the plant other than it just doesn’t look very good.

You can use copper fungicides.  You can just hose it off, too. Or you can spread the planting out a little bit further. You can go 18 to 24 inches and encourage a little more circulation so that you don’t get the powdery mildew.

Harvesting and Storing Dahlias

Erin Hoover (21:49)
If you’re in an area where they’re prone to rotting because of the damp soil in the winter, when do you dig them up, and how do you store them?

Ed Adams (21:55)
Yep.

Okay. Well, I’m going to start with, before you dig them up, you’re going to get all your labeling stuff together. It’s important to a lot of people to make sure they know what they have. I mean, there’s been times where I’m just like, I just care what’s the color and the height, but you don’t get all your labeling tagging map it out, which, you know, how are we going to take care of them?

And then you’re going to get some dividing tools. You get your little utility knife, your snips, your pruners. And then I also use an oscillating saw. So you can look that up. That’s for those really big clumps that you can’t get apart.  And then you’re disinfecting because you don’t want to spread anything that you don’t know you have.

So if you do have a virus or something, between every clump, a clump is a whole bunch of tubers all put together, so it’s one big plant. I disinfect whatever tools I have with bleach, you know, any kind of spray or Lysol works really well too, alcohol. And then, you know, that end of November comes, and you get your first big hard frost, they call it the killing frost.

I typically wait about one week. And then I go, and I’ll cut them all down. And then I’ll start digging up my tubers and use a garden fork, a spade, you know, a shovel, dig wide and deep, to damage your clump.  Some people decide they want to leave them in. And like I said, in Sequim, that seems to work pretty well. Like this year, I left in half of mine.

And what I did is on a big portion, I take like pots, planting pots, I just flip them upside down and put a little straw around the edges, and it keeps the moisture off. So that’s a really good way to do it. Another section I tried, because one of the farmers does this, is I laid some black plastic down over one of the beds, and then I just covered it with a, you know, about six or eight inches of straw, and it worked fine.

And what I did is on a big portion, I take like pots, planting pots, I just flip them upside down and put a little straw around the edges, and it keeps the moisture off. So that’s a really good way to do it. Another section I tried, because one of the farmers does this, is I laid some black plastic down over one of the beds, and then I just covered it with a, you know, about six or eight inches of straw, and it worked fine.

There is a flower farm in…Port Townsend, and he just got tired of digging them up every year, and he just leaves them. He doesn’t touch them until the spring. So, he has a pretty good success rate, but obviously has good drainage because otherwise they would just rot.

When you’re going to store them, and you decide you’re going to dig them up. So you dig up these great big clumps. And I mean, sometimes you’ll get five tubers from it. Sometimes you’ll get 20, which is kind of cool. You’re multiplying your product.

How I like to do it is I’ll dig them up, and I’ll leave all the dirt on. And then when I’m ready to divide it, I’ll give it a good wash. And then within 24 hours, I divide it. After I give it that big wash, I wash all the dirt off. Because then you can see the eyes. If you leave it too long, like after 24 hours, those eyes sort of go back into the tuber, and you can’t really see them. And you want one eye on every tuber.

So a tuber has, you know, the body, there’s the neck, and then the very top part is the crown or the, we call it, the brain. And there has to be an eye on there or it’s not going to be viable. So, and once again, if you’re not sure, rather than going and storing it and then, you know, next spring, go stick it in the ground somewhere.

Erin Hoover (25:19)
Mm-hmm.

Ed Adams (25:43)
If you’re not sure it’s going to plant, you can always do that pre-sprouting in the spring, just to see if it’s going to actually get a sprout.

Storage: You can use vermiculite. So it’s a great, great medium to store.  Some people have respiratory issues. I would recommend not doing vermiculite because it can bother your chest, bother your throat. Wood shavings. And I would mist the wood shavings a couple of times, you know, during the winter, because I’ve had them like wood shavings dry out the tubers.

I’ve done this one. You get Saran Wrap, and you wrap each tuber individually. And it’s, you don’t have to do anything. You can just put them all in the container, and you don’t have to worry about it. And most of them did pretty well.

I actually like peat moss. I know we’re trying to conserve peat moss and not use it, but I do like, yeah.

And then once again, we talked about labeling. Make sure that you have all these labeled. So otherwise you pull them out in the spring, and you’re like,  okay, what am I doing? Where am I? Where am I putting this? What is it? So you have the mystery, the mystery tubers.

So, we talked about overwintering. There’s another lady in Sequim. She cuts down the stocks of the dahlias, and then she lays them on top of the ones that are still in the ground. And she’s had great success with that. So I thought that was pretty cool.

I have not tried that one yet. But yeah, you know, one year I had like 600 pots. And of course, you’ve got to make sure you stick a rock on top of them, or you’re going over to your neighbor’s place trying to find all your pots after that big windstorm.

Erin Hoover (27:11)
Nice. So she’s like using the aerial parts of the plant as mulch, okay. cool. yeah.

Ed Adams (27:29)
Yep. Yep. Which I thought that was just ingenious. So she’s been doing it for 20-something years.  Since we’re kind of, we’re talking about this stuff, I would make sure that you dig up your dahlias about every three to four years. Otherwise, you’re going to end up with this just ginormous clump, and it’s almost impossible to divide.

I mean, you can take a clump, and you can cut it in half, or you can quarter it. But to get those individual tubers, if it’s been in the ground too long, it’s just unmanageable. You know, it’s like irises. If you leave them in the ground too long, you get this huge rhizome, right? And it’s just too big to deal with.

Erin Hoover (28:09)
So as it gets larger, does the center kind of die out like it does with Irises, where you get the older tubers kind of rot?

Ed Adams (28:16)
Yeah, you’ll get the mother, yeah, you’ll get the mother tuber in the middle, and you know, it’s, it’s sometimes mushy or hollow, and it’s just hard to work with, and they just keep growing on top of each other. So, yep, I recommend every three years. So just rotating, know, pull up a third each year.

Scaling Up Dahlia Cultivation

Erin Hoover (28:38)
So how do you scale up to that? I mean, from, you know, a couple here and there in a perennial bed or something to 600 varieties.

Ed Adams (28:51)
Yeah. It’s something if you know, you’re passionate about it, you’re gonna find a way, right? So yeah, I don’t do anything halfway. Like I said, I have like over 200 Japanese maples, and that’s just in a few years since we’ve moved here. Yeah. But yeah, if you’re gonna scale up, just keep making those beds bigger and finding different beds.

 Erin Hoover (29:21)
The organization of when you’re overwintering tubers and things like that, what does that look like?

Ed Adams (29:28)
Yeah, I’ve got, you know, I’ve got like a mud room, and it’s, you know, I’ve got lots of shelving and all these containers full of, and you find out which containers you like. Like, I don’t like super deep containers. I’ve tried that, you know, those big tubs and loading them. I liked them. They’re about what, six to eight inches, the container, deep, and it’s just easier to work with, and they’re not lying on top. don’t have all the weight on top of them.

But yeah, I’ve got stuff stacked everywhere. Then I actually like to do a lot by color. So I like to plant in drifts, as I said. So it just makes it easier. I flag them with ribbons and the color. I kind of know where all the yellows are in my area and where all the purples are and just makes it easier.

But yeah, anything that you’re really attached to, I would not leave in the ground. You pay that $25 or $30 for a tuber. That’s the one I would never leave in the ground because you just never know what could happen.

You know, I had a friend who has a flower farm, and she tried the plastic, she went to lift up the plastic and the voles had ate almost all of her tubers. Yeah. So she was pretty heartbroken. So, yeah. And you can, you can control, you know, the temperature in your, in your shop or wherever you’re storing them.

Erin Hoover (30:38)
Oh no.

Ed Adams (30:50)
And, you know, outside, you just never know. You don’t know if you got voles. don’t know if it’s, you know, a couple of years ago it was down to six degrees for two days. And, you know, so that’s a little tough. And then you don’t know about the rain. You know, we could have a super rainy month and, you know, lose a bunch of your stuff.

Choosing the Right Dahlia Varieties

Erin Hoover (31:11)
Yeah. So, what are a couple of your favorite varieties?

Ed Adams (31:15)
It’s a funny one. Favorite.

I guess I like the prolific bloomers, like Chelsea’s Pride, it’s a kind of light soft pink, pink white, grows about five feet tall. And it, I mean, it’s a workhorse. just keeps, you know, pumping out the flowers all summer long. That’s one that I really like.  A la Mode, it’s another one. It’s two-toned, it’s orange, and with little white tips on the end. It’s super vibrant.

Another one about four to five feet tall, and I mean it just kind of stands out when you’re walking. You just look over like it’s right right there. It’s right in my face. You know it sticks out.  Diva, it’s a fantastic bloom. It’s purple, it has long stems, about four and a half feet tall. It’s one of my favorites.  

Colorado Classic it’s, it’s a pink one. It’s got wavy petals, and then it opens fully, about four feet tall. And this super nice pink, got a little bit of yellow in the middle. And then the last one, Cafe au Lait, it’s sort of a classic. Big fluffy blooms. It gets about eight inches in diameter, the flower. We were talking about earlier, it’s this great big one. And then it’s a prolific bloomer as well, about four feet tall. So yeah, there’s five.

Erin Hoover (32:46)
Nice.

Ed Adams (32:47)
Give you a nice taste of what I like. So I like a lot of bright stuff, but I like the ones that just keep on blooming.

Erin Hoover (32:54)
Right. So what about some of the more reliable performers versus like the fussier varieties, and which is worth it?

Ed Adams (33:02)

Oh, well, I mean, you know, we’re all different, but you know, I like the ones where, you know, you do your deadheading, you do your cutting, and you don’t have to play around with them. They just keep on blooming. Yeah, it’s, but you know, somebody else might like to like there’s the Japanese maple guy, and then there’s the Bonsai guy, the Bonsai guy wants to spend, you know, you know, eight hours on one tree.

Whereas the Japanese maple guy, you know, will have 10 different trees that they’re taking care of and making sure that the colors and everything look good.

Common Mistakes New Dahlia Growers Make

Erin Hoover (33:35)
So what are some of the more common mistakes that growers who are new to dahlias could avoid?

Ed Adams (33:43)
Not pinching, I see that a lot. Then you just end up with like one flower, one or two flowers per stem, so not as many flowers. And then a lot of people, they don’t cut the flowers. It’s like, you’ve got all these flowers, cut them. And don’t be afraid, they’re going to just keep on growing.

Not staking or trying to stake after they’re three or four feet tall.

So make sure you do your staking before, right when you’re planting, or before you’re planting.

And then we talked about a little bit earlier is not rotating. So, leaving your plants in the ground for too many seasons, make sure you rotate them about every three or four years.

Erin Hoover (34:28)
Okay.

Ed Adams (34:28)
Of course, under watering, the plants get dry, then all of a sudden, you get all those, these pests.

Not fertilizing, so make sure you feed them; they like to eat.

Encouragement for Aspiring Dahlia Gardeners

Erin Hoover (34:38)
So, do you have any encouragement for gardeners who might be a little intimidated by growing dahlias?

Ed Adams (34:46)
Yeah, I mean, just, you know, just get into it and get started. Another good way to do it would just get some containers and, you know, you can do one dahlia per container, you know, get a three to five-gallon pot and same thing, plant them horizontally in the pot and give that a try. And the good thing about pots is you can move them around. You can bring them, and you don’t have to dig them up in the winter. You can just bring them in and put them in your shop.

I’d also recommend, you know, just doing like a daily walk, it’s fun for you. Establish a routine where you’re cruising around, looking at your dahlias, inspecting the plants, pulling a few weeds here, a couple of weeds here, dead-heading a little bit.  And then any pests or anything, then you can kind of be on top of it. So just establish like, okay, every day I’m just going to walk, just take five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever it is, and just do a little daily walk through your dahlias or your garden.

Erin Hoover (35:47)
Yeah, that sounds like really good advice for just about any gardener, really it’s something I’ve been trying to do too.

Ed Adams (35:51)
Absolutely, Yep,

Erin Hoover (35:54)
So what would you say is the one thing that makes the biggest difference for being successful with dahlias?

Ed Adams (36:01)
I think selection plays a huge part. So we talked about where to get them. When I first moved here, I went and I bought a bunch of lavender at one of the local stores. And at first I was like, man, this lavender just isn’t doing the greatest. You know, it was one of the big box stores. So then went to the lavender festival and I got to know a couple of the farmers, and I bought these great plants, and they didn’t cost much from the lavender farmer, and got the tips from them and built a relationship with them.

And I mean, they flourished, and they did great. So, the same thing with dahlias is, you know, try to connect with the local farmers, the local people, the dahlias society. And, uh, you know, rather than getting that, you know, 10 plants for one, $1 or $5 or whatever.

That good sale item isn’t always the good sale item. You don’t start with a good product. They struggle. And then you end up getting viruses or whatever else. And then just keep on top of it. Start Mother’s Day and just keep on top of it all summer, and have fun with it.

Experiment and get lots of different colors, and try the different shapes.

Erin Hoover (37:20)
Well, I can think of several Dahlia farms throughout Western Washington. So I would really encourage the listeners to seek out a local farmer. There’s one literally like five miles up the road from me, Dan’s Dahlia’s. He’s at the Northwest Flower and Garden Festival every year. Floret Farm up in Skagit County, Mount Vernon. Yeah, they grow a lot of things, but Dahlias too.

Ed Adams (37:27)
Yeah. Well, Swan Island is the biggest dahlia grower in the United States, and that’s just down in Oregon. Canby, Oregon. You know, if you’re into dahlias, if you have a chance, go down and visit their garden or somebody else’s garden. Tacoma has one called Hidden Well, and just an amazing product, great, great dahlias, and great videos too, you know.

And when you’re learning, you know, hop online and go look at the Swan Island videos on how to divide. You know, how to propagate. Same with Hidden Wells. She has all these great videos on, you know, how to do the best storage or try this.

Erin Hoover (38:26)
Right, yeah. And you shared some resources with me, which I will put on the blog post, so people can see, Floret Farm, Swan Island, and some other growers that have really good resources on their websites.

Ed Adams (38:31)
Yeah. Yep. Yep. Societies too. It’s really fun. Like I said, I joined two of them, and it’s just fun to learn from their expertise. Everybody does things a little differently. And it’s like, I tried the Saran Wrap, one year, I’ve done it two years, and it was successful. So, you know, good way to store. And I would never have even thought of that.

Erin Hoover (39:02)
Yeah, I’d be worried about too much moisture getting trapped in them, rotting or something.

Ed Adams (39:06)
Yeah, yeah, I was too, but yeah, it worked out, know, I made sure there was no air in there, and yeah. I had rot one year; that year got really cold. I had some dahlias on my bottom shelf. So the concrete got cold, and some of those, you know, some of those rotted because they got frozen. Because yeah, if they freeze, then they’re done.

 But yeah, dahlias are wonderful. There’s a dahlia for everybody.

Final Thoughts on Growing Dahlias

Erin Hoover (39:37)
Any final thoughts you want to share with listeners about dahlias?

Ed Adams (39:41)

I think we pretty much covered it. You know, just have fun with it, deal with your pests right away, you know, play around, experiment.

Erin Hoover (39:52)
Right, well, thank you so much for being here. This is great information about dahlias. I’m excited to try them again.

Ed Adams (39:58)
Hey, thanks again, Erin