Winter is here. I should be dreaming of sugar plums but instead I’m planning and dreaming of cut flower beds bursting with color from dinner plate dahlias. Each year our tubers multiply and my basement is exploding with totes of dahlia tubers. I’m excited to finally have excess tubers to gift so that the love from our gardens can extend into our friends gardens. I loved how my grandmother would always give my mom and sister a tour of her flowers every time we went for a weekend visit during the summer. I wished I would have payed more attention, but I thought it was amazing how she new every flower name and where she bought it or who gave her the transplant section.

If you are dreaming of your own dahlia garden here are a few tips.

Order all of Floret Flowers books.
Search local gardeners on craigslist or shop catalogs this winter to make your selection of flower styles you want to plant. I purchased locally from gardeners and farm stores.
Plan your space. Brook rototilled a row and we laid plastic to cut down on weeds. I dug a large enough hole every foot and planted one tuber in each hole. covered it up just to the top of the tuber and waited to water the tubers until I saw little green shoots pop out of the soil. Plant as soon as there is no sign of frost. In zone 6B that is after Mother’s Day.
Once they started to grow we trellised the row with poles and garden twine. This is important. The dahlias get very large and heavy. You will need to give them support as they grow.
Flowers will begin in late June and continue until frost.
To dig up tubers, leave the flowers and tubers in the ground until after the first or second hard frost.
Dig up tubers using a shovel or pitch fork. Make sure to dig far away from the stalk as the tubers spread like a potato. If you slice or poke any of the tubers discard those. You really just need to loosen the soil and pull the stalk of the plant out of the soil. shake excess dirt from the tubers.
Cut the stalk and leave just the tubers. Rinse them off really well with a high powered hose. Dip in a 5% bleach solution. Leave to dry in the sun for a day.
Once they are dry. Separate the tubers and layer them in peat moss in a large storage tote.
Store in a cool dark place. A basement is ideal.
Remove them from storage close to the time you plan to plant. Sort through them and toss any that have rotted over winter.
Plant, cut, dig, share, store, repeat.