The Dahlias Are Chubby
At this very moment, the Dahlias are not only chubby, but also available in our web shop. You can order your favourites for next year.
As the title implies, the tubers have grown well this year, they have had some excellent weight gain, something we can only be happy about when it comes to flower bulbs.
Mother Nature has been good to me and my colleagues in the agricultural world this year, growers have been very content with their harvests and when I look at my inbox, I also see that many of our customers have had great success in their own gardens.
This apple tree, Groninger Kroon, has been a little over-enthusiastic too.
Before I continue bragging about our Dahlia assortment and its many new introductions, I want to give you a few tips.
Many readers are probably not planning to order Dahlia tubers. You are probably someone who knows what they are doing, and you are simply planning to dig up this year’s Dahlias and use them again for next season. If this is your plan, it is important to keep these two things in mind.
First, and this is a common mistake, be very careful when pushing your shovel into the ground. Your Dahlia has probably grown a lot, and even if you think you know exactly where you planted it, it might have extended in the direction of your shovel. Before you know it, you have split the tuber, and that would be a shame.
Second, and I may be too late for some people, but do not wait too long if you want to save your Dahlias. Dahlia tubers do NOT like cold and frost, and once they are frozen, there is no coming back. Apologies for not mentioning this last week, I had not thought of the weather suddenly turning this cold in such a short amount of time. Not even one week ago it was around 15 degrees Celsius where I live, which is basically a heatwave during this time of year, and some Dahlias were still in bloom. Now, the thermostat has been at minus two at its lowest, which is a catastrophe for Dahlias still in the ground.
Don’t despair too much, your Dahlias might be okay if you dig them up as quickly as possible. They were probably covered by some fallen leaves, and hopefully, those leaves have protected the tubers from the frost. But don’t count on that too much, if your Dahlias are still planted and you want to use them again, do not wait any longer.
I hope this message reaches you in time, because managing to get your Dahlias to bloom another year is one of the best feelings in the world. Some years ago, I asked my readers how long they had managed to keep their Dahlias with them, and the answer was pleasantly surprising. There were actually dozens of people who had easily managed to keep the same Dahlias for over twenty-five years. There were even some outliers who didn’t even know how long their tubers had been around, they had inherited them from some great-aunt and had just continued planting them. Those are always the best stories to hear.
But if you are planning to re-plant the Dahlias you already have, I still want to ask you to just have a look at the new introductions on our web site. We have 125 varieties this year, of which over 40 are new introductions. We are very proud of the collection, many people have contributed to it this year, and maybe you will find something that will complement the Dahlias you already have perfectly.
If you are unfamiliar with the process of digging and then re-planting your Dahlias but are intrigued now, you can find the information on how to try this on our website. If you follow the instructions, you should be able to successfully complete the process. I do want to emphasise one thing: Do NOT wash the Dahlia tubers. I know from experience some people tend to rinse off the tubers once they have been dug up, and they might feel like they are pampering their Dahlia by doing so, but this is not healthy for the tuber. The tuber has a sort of protective wax-y layer, and if you rinse that off, the tuber becomes much more susceptible to dehydration. After digging the tubers, just let them air dry with the sand on them. Once they’re dry, you can carefully brush off the worst of the sand (or just keep them sandy) and then roll them in paper or sawdust. That’s how they are happiest.
Anything else?
Not really, I think this is it for this week. I have written so many new Dahlia texts this year, I think if you want more reading material, you should go to the web site and see what we can tell you about all of our new introductions. For now, I want to go back outside.
See you next week,
Kind regards,
Carlos van der Veek
Dahlia Stolze von Berlin, a Dahlia that may have been planted by your grandmother’s grandmother. This Dahlia was introduced in 1884, and she is beautiful. I love that the grower decided to bring this one back.
