Glorious Dahlia Tubers … a tuber is a tuber is a tuber as long as it has a viable eye from which a new plant will grow. If a tuber does not have a viable eye, it’s known as a blind tuber, and although it may grow roots, it will never produce a new plant. Tubers can be tiny (like the size of your thumb or even smaller) or huge (like the size of your forearm). They can be skinny or fat. They can be long or short. They can have some colour pigmentation or not! They can have thin necks or no necks. They can be “ugly” or “beautiful” and still both produce the same gorgeous blooms that are true to the parent dahlia that produced the tubers. They are even edible! Perhaps a good way to use up blind tubers in a nice “zucchini” style loaf made with peeled and grated dahlia tubers?
Growing dahlias from tubers is the most common and arguably the easiest way to grow dahlias. You may find them available as single tubers, or small clumps (pot tubers – commonly found with imported products in nurseries), or even as large clumps (less commonly found for sale, but often friends or family might offer them this way!). A tuber will carry the same genetics as its parent dahlia – unlike seeds from the same plant, where the genetic variation is so high that a plant grown from seed will usually look substantially different than its parents.
Dahlia tubers are extremely sensitive to freezing and the plants are not hardy – they can’t tolerate a frost. So in Canada, tubers are harvested in the fall, stored over the winter in cool & dark conditions, and then planted again in the spring when the risk of frost has passed (usually mid-May in Terrace, BC, Canada). Some folks in the milder climes of Canada have success overwintering dahlias in the grounds – but there is always the risk of losing them to a freeze.
A freshly washed clump of tubers getting ready to be split and divided into individual tubers, then stored away for the winter.