Few Words on Dahlias

Dahlias seem to be very popular at the moment, and the debate is ongoing whether to leave them in the ground over winter or lift them and store them.

Unfortunatley keeping the tubers over winter is not as simple as it seems. They will either rot or dry out.

Of course the prospect of lifting each and every one of them every year is not appealing either. You could give them up all together but that would be a shame since Dahlias are at their best at the moment, and make a great display combined with autumn colors.

As with most tender plants the problem with Dahlias is not so much the cold but a combination of cold and wet weather which could cause tubers to rot.

To overcome the problem I plant all tubers in large pots of multi-purpose compost before planting them in the ground. This gives them a good layer of drained soil underneath. After the first frost I cut them down and cover each plant with a layer of fleece with bark piled on top. This creates a layer of insulation, and also reduces the amount of rain reaching the tuber (that's my theory anyway).
I have about 10 diffrent varieties planted out in the garden, they have all come back successfuly for the second year now.

The only thing that would prevent them coming back again next year will be the slugs. Slugs love young Dahlia shoots and the only way around them has been to use pellets, unfortunatly becaus of the amount of rain we had they were not as effective as in previous years, so the plans reached mature size much later then usual and only started flowering towards the end of August. (Not having much sun might also had something to do with it).

This doesn't stop them from providing a beautiful display!

The images in this post are of Dahlia Semi-Cactus ' 'Color Spectacle' (large orange flowers with white tips, reaches 1.2m) and Dahlia 'Shandy' (peach flowers reaches 75cm)

Dahlia 'Sunshine'