Tag: grow beautiful dahlias

Dahlia planting season…

… is in full swing for dahlia gardeners and growers across Canada. Depending where you are, you might be just starting, right in the middle, nearly done or done! We’re in the nearly done camp… and that always feels good when you can stand straight up for awhile. Along with planting season, it’s also “still a risk of frost season” in many places across Canada.

Our frost-free date in Terrace BC is usually around mid-May. We started planting out the dahlias on May 10th. The 2 week forecast looked pretty mild with a low risk of any frosty mornings so in my excitement some of the first varieties I put in the ground were some of my favourites that I started early indoors. They already had a fair bit of beautiful green growth exposed above the soil line. Risky! Because those weather forecasts? They change a bit sometimes and ours did! The forecast for the morning of May 31st, after a relatively warm day on the 30th, showed temps going down to 1 degree celsius with clear skies. A recipe for frost…Eek!

What to do?

We’re worried about the cuttings and early starts that we’ve planted. If cuttings get frosted, they are lost. If an early started tuber’s growth is frosted, the green foliage will wilt when it thaws and die off, but if the tuber is in good shape it will likely send up new growth albeit set back a couple weeks. We’re not at all worried about the tubers that have been planted that haven’t broken thru the soil yet. That is one of the reasons we prefer planting eyed up tubers as opposed to cuttings.

Learning about how frost forms is really interesting and its really useful knowledge to have if you’re a gardener or a farmer. I haven’t found a really reliable weather forecast for frost in our area. So in lieu of that I rely on my own observations. If we have a very warm or hot sunny day, followed by clear skies over night and early morning temperatures above zero but less than 5 degrees celsius, there is a high likelihood that frost will occur in exposed areas.

There are a few things you can do!

Do nothing! Pay your money, take your chances. But give it some thought! If you’ve got cuttings planted and you get a frost, you will most likely lose those plants.
Don’t plant your early starts or cuttings out in the field until all risk of frost has passed! i.e. if you’ve got space to keep them going in a greenhouse, do that.
Cover up all the dahlias that have growth above the soil line. Frost cloth is nice to have on hand. It’s extra work to get out there and cover everything up… but it might be in your best interests. If you just have a few plants, you can cover them up with big pots. Covering plants traps the radiant energy (like cloud cover does too) from escaping that causes surface temperatures to cool rapidly creating frost.
move your plants to a sheltered area – only really feasible if you’ve got a few in pots
Get the sprinklers out! That’s right! It works. Adding water to the equation can help protect your plants from a frost.

What did we do?

On the evening of May 30th, we used overhead sprinklers to ensure all the dahlia beds were well watered. We did not put out any frost cloth. We did not move any plants that had been set out to harden off if they were in relatively sheltered spots (i.e. alongside a greenhouse, under the canopy of a tree etc.). Your risk tolerance for loss along with experience will help guide you. We want to minimize both loss and the amount of extra work we have to do. Sometimes that means having a loss here and there for those “I won’t do that again” lessons.

The results?

On the morning of May 31st I did a walk around and observed that we did indeed have a light frost! The leaves of our strawberry plants were frosty, there was visible frost on the grass in exposed areas. How bout the dahlias? They were all ok! Not a single plant was lost. Yay!

During my walk around, I noticed one very interesting anomaly! The lid of a big rubbermaid tub full of baling twine had collected water from the overhead sprinklers. There was a skim of ice on top! ICE!!! On top of the tub I had set out a dahlia that I had been growing in its own container for the past month. The water was frozen, but the dahlia was not! The leaves just had a heavy dew on them. Neat! Puzzling! Science is cool and the dahlias are alive and well!

Ice formed on the top of the rubbermaid container full of baling twine even though the air temperature was just above zero.

The dahlia growing in the plastic tub set on top of the rubbermaid container had heavy dew on its leaves, but did not get frosted!

Enjoy the Dahlia!!!

Dahlia

Dahlia Blooms for Bouquets…The Dahlia Dish Dec. 11, 2024

December 11, 2024December 11, 2024 Medeek Meadows Dahlia Farm

The bouquet pictured here is created in our classic style! The blooms in this one are from dahlias Cream Diane, Skeena Posh, Hamari Rose, Skeena Hope, Small World, Carl Chilson, Silver Years and Skeena Harmonies.

With so many choices, which varieties and styles should you grow? What qualities should you consider?

Our five main considerations for choosing a dahlia variety suitable for bouquets are Stem Length, Style of Bloom, Colour of Bloom, Size of Bloom, and Floriferosity.

1. Stem Length – nice long stems are preferred – it can mean less time spent disbudding.

The variety pictured here is Skeena Easy Breezy with her very long stems!

2. Style of bloom – we prefer a blend of styles. Balls, poms, decorative, waterlily, cactus… Using a blend of bloom styles can add lovely variety and texture to bouquets.

An example of a bouquet including Pompon accent blooms (Small World), Formal Decorative Blooms (Lupin Chris and Jowey Veronique), Stellar style blooms (purple Skeena seedling 23-037 and Sandy Couzens an imperfect stellar form with lovely purple picotee edging on its white petals).

3. Colour of bloom – blending colours in bouquets is a bit of an art. One of the reasons we grow so many varieties is that it affords us an extensive array of colours to choose from for building our dahlia bouquets. If you’re limited on space, or just getting started growing dahlias for bouquets, give some thought to the colour palettes that you and your customers are looking for.

A fall colour toned bouquet with gorgeous warm and golden yellow, orange and burgundy tones. Dahlias in this bouquet include Day Dreamer (waterlily style), WD Aunty Dor (Stellar style), Skeena Shan (Formal Decorative style), Skeena Sugar Pie (Formal Decorative), Skeena Gem (Formal Decorative), and Hy Suntan (Ball).

4. Size of bloom – we like a range of blooms sizes. From the pompons under 2 inches in size up to about 5 or 6 inches max. Using a mix of bloom sizes in bouquets adds interest, variation and visual appeal.

This bouquet shows a range of bloom sizes from about 2″ up to about 5″. We’ve also included some dahlia bud stems that haven’t quite opened yet (a great way to use stems in the fall that won’t have enough time to fully bloom before frost).

5. Floriferosity – growing varieties that have lots of blooms over the season are favoured. Remember to pinch plants to encourage lateral branching and more stems. And remember to disbud to get more usable stems per plant.

6. Space – if you’re limited in growing space, you may just want to pay a bit more attention to size of bloom and floriferostiy. It takes more small blooms to fill out a bouquet than larger blooms. A garden of pompons would be delightful, but also much harder to fill out a bouquet with such tiny blooms.

Enjoy the Dahlia!

#enjoythedahlia #skeenadahlias #terracebc #dahliafarm #dahlias #growbeautifuldahlias #dahliabouquets #freshflowers #bouquets

Dahlia

I told a friend…The Dahlia Dish, March 25, 2024

March 25, 2024September 14, 2025 Medeek Meadows Dahlia Farm

One of the things that fascinates us about dahlia blooms is that there are so many beautiful varieties that haven’t or never seem to “make it big”. They take their time to catch on. They sit a little longer on the shelves, they wait like wallflowers for an invite to dance, they might be the last players to get picked to play on the team…Why?

The visual appeal of a flower might be a combination of preference for just two qualities: colour and form. The functional appeal of a flower is how well it serves the needs of the grower in the garden and the vase: think stem length, bloom time, “floriferosity”, vase life, tubers and also colour and form.

If a bloom meets both visual and functional appeal is it guaranteed to be a winner? Is it going to hit the big times? Is it going to be the next Hollywood star in your bouquets and gardens? Maybe! Much more likely if it gets airtime! And much much more likely if the hype is not an empty promise that eventually sends the bloom down the road of ambiguity.

The volume of street chatter needs to get loud enough for dahlia growers to hear the call of a dahlia name more than once or twice and in a favourable tone. Often this chatter starts from a dahlia society or from a dahlia show where top prizes are coveted. Word of mouth is powerful! Remember that fabulous Faberge Organics Shampoo TV commercial starring actress Heather Locklear? “…I liked it so much I told 2 friends about it, and they told 2 friends, and so on, and so on, and so on”… that very same phenomenon happens with dahlias…

Dahlias that are on either side of the limelight are excellent choices for the vase and garden because they can usually be found at reasonable and in some cases low prices whereas those unicorns directly under the bright lights of stardom can cost a pretty penny, an arm or leg, maybe even your firstborn! Varieties on the bleeding edge of limelight are usually lesser known or new to the scene, while classic varieties that were once in the limelight have been around for awhile, are well known, readily available and have great qualities. Classics are a fantastic choice for new growers and seasoned growers too if they’ve never graced your garden.

A few varieties that we think are on the bleeding edge of limelight because of their visual and functional appeal, relative scarcity or obscurity and incredible qualities include: Bargaly Blush, Island View Moon, Cherish, Clearview Peachy, Aurora’s Kiss, Daddy’s Girl, After Dusk, Jabberbox and Ferncliff Classy.

A few solid classics that we adore and love to grow include: Carl Chilson, Ivanetti, Cornel, Robin Hood, Jowey Paula, Nijinsky, Just Peachy, and Snoho Sonia.

Remember! The beautiful dahlias on both sides of the limelight are often just as incredible as the current “stars” and “unicorns”! Tell a friend!!!

Grow Beautiful Dahlias!

Enjoy the Dahlia!

Dahlia

What in the influence?!?… The Dahlia Dish March 19th, 2024

March 19, 2024March 19, 2024 Medeek Meadows Dahlia Farm

Our Boppa grew dahlias in the gardens by the house at the farm on Oldfield road and I wonder if he didn’t grow them would I be growing them today? As a kid, I remember being particularly enamoured with the huge yellow blooms of Kelvin Floodlight. They made a huge impact! So much so that when I bought my first house 30 years later and finally had my own gardens, I planted my first dahlias along with green arrow shelling peas (because they are AMAZING too and great snacks if you like snacking straight off the vine)! There was no internet back in the early 80s so exposure to beautiful dahlias was limited to seeing them in the gardens of friends and family, via a visit to the dahlia display at the Butchart Gardens, via local Dahlia Society events, or the exhibition hall at a fall fair (our closest was the Saanich Fall Fair). Since that first house, my gardens have never been without dahlias! But… unlike my Boppa who seemed to grow the same varieties year after year, I find myself continuously enamoured by new varieties with their fabulous forms and colours.

I did grow Kelvin Floodlight for the sake of sentiment and nostalgia in my early gardens. But new factors influenced my decision to stop growing it. Its a show stopper to be sure due to its magnificent size and bright yellow colour but its too big for the average bouquet and is also a later bloomer so not the best choice for me with the shorter growing season where we live in Terrace in Northwest BC vs the Victoria area on Vancouver Island…. so KF had to go! Tough choices when you have limited space and certain requirements (i.e. must be able to use in a bouquet)!

Availability and access to new varieties ramped up exponentially since the internet became a thing… and then even more so in the last 20 years +or- as smart phones and social media on the internet became things… Thinking back to around the year 2005 I was working for a well-loved airline called Hawkair. I remember Captain Lopes showing us this new “app” called Facebook where you could sign up for an account and connect with friends and family no matter where they were in the world so long as they had accounts too “for free”! Wild! Smartphones with cameras enabled the ability to connect to the internet and share photos of beautiful dahlias in just seconds!!! Internet + Social Media + Smartphones = Dahlia Awareness to the nth degree! You might also call this influence…

Ever wonder how many photos of beautiful dahlias have been shared via social media?! Sooooo many! We can admire seemingly limitless photos of dahlias 24/7/365! Anytime, any day, all year long! We are under the influence!!!

Over the years I find that my preferences for colours and forms of dahlia flowers changes… but the 1 thing that stays constant is my appetite for new varieties. The thrill of watching a new variety bloom for the first time! Its so exciting to see it bloom in the garden for the first time! When I see these new blooms, I can’t help but start to compare them to varieties I’ve grown before. Which do I prefer and why? Practicality and the attributes of the variety itself are ultimately what influences me the most when it comes time to decide if I will continue to grow it or not.

What influences your decision to grow a new variety? Is it the colour? Is it the form? Is it the growth habit? Is it because “everybody” wants it? Is it sentimental? Is it the name of the variety? Is it because it blooms earlier? Is it because its a blooming powerhouse? Is it the size of the bloom? Is it the tubers? Is it the stem length? Is it practicality? Is it show worthiness?

Whatever the influence!!! Enjoy the Dahlia!!!

Dahlia

Dahlia Bouquets… The Dahlia Dish March 13, 2024

March 13, 2024September 14, 2025 Medeek Meadows Dahlia Farm

When there are so many beautiful flowers in the world , you might wonder why choose the dahlia? Why is the dahlia so wonderful for bouquets? We think we know the answers! There are A LOT of reasons!!!

Firstly, dahlias are available in almost every shade and every hue of every colour unlike many flowers that are available in just a handful of standard colours. There are sooooo many colours! So many! You’ll find dahlias in the colour groups of White, Yellow, Pink, Orange, Red, Purple, and Bronze. No Blue… and I don’t think we’ve ever seen a Green or a Brown dahlia bloom, but genetically these may be possibly whereas Blue is not.

Additionally, unlike most other flowers, dahlias are available in multiple magical forms and styles! Forms are defined by the general shape of the bloom, the shape of its petals, the number of rows of petals, the arrangement of the petals, open centred (like a sunflower showing off its central disc), or closed centre (the central disc is not visible until the flower is fully matured and spent). Its true that some dahlias can look quite a bit like other flowers such as Asters, Peonies, Daisies or Waterlilies!

The shapes! The general shape of the flower can be round like a ball (Ball and Pompon), flatter like a plate (Decorative), cupped like a saucer (Waterlily). The shape of the petals in each bloom are another source of incredible variation in form! Petals can be pointy, rounded, incurved, recurved, reflexed, wavy, curly, flat, elongated, tubular… The shape of a dahlia bloom’s petals further define forms of Cactus, Semi-Cactus, Informal Decorative, Formal Decorative, Novelty, Anenome, Peony…

The petals! The number of petals in a bloom further contribute to the appeal of dahlias. Some are Singles… open centred having a single row of petals around a central disc. Others are Doubles… multiple rows of petals around the central disc, some with a closed centre, some with an open centre.

The size of the blooms! As tiny as 1″ across (Pompons) these are perfect for bouquet accents… to larger than 10″ across (multiple forms such as Decorative and Semi-Cactus often referred to as Dinner Plate sizes) that are spectacular to use for focal flowers in event or bridal bouquets. There is a dahlia bloom available in every single size you desire for a bouquet! We favour those that are up to 6″ in size for daily bouquets.

The stems! Dahlia stems can differ by variety too! Some are super stiff and straight up, while others are more wiry or bendy and perfect for whimsy. We like the full range of stems for use in bouquets so long as they are long enough to use!

The bloom window! Dahlias offer blooms for a long period during the summer! Bloom time varies by variety. Some will bloom earlier in the season and some will bloom later. We favour the earlier to mid season blooming varieties because we want them for bouquets as early as possible in the season. We do love to have a few later blooming dahlias in the queue to contribute to the ever changing variation that adds interest to our bouquets all season long. And remember! Dahlias are known to be cut and come again flowers! The more blooms you cut for bouquets, the more blooms you’ll get!

The possibilities of creating beautiful bouquets using dahlia blooms are endless! The colours, the forms and styles, the sizes, the stems, the bloom window! Dahlias make it fun and easy to create beautiful bouquets enabling the spread joy and happiness!

Tips for beautiful bouquets:

Choose colours that work well together! If the tone or shade of a particular variety isn’t quite right, save it for another bouquet. Sometimes when we grow a new variety, we find that the colour might be gorgeous but also awkward because we don’t have any other dahlia blooms that go well with it. If we really love the colour, we’ll use these as focal flowers in bouquets using other flower types and greens as filler. And if we really really love the colour, we’ll start trying to source more dahlia varieties to complement it and we will often grow more of that variety.
Threes work well! 3 varieties with colours that complement, 3 stems of each bloom… or multiples thereof.
Bridges and blenders! Many dahlias are bicolour or have a blush or a kiss of a secondary colour. These are perfect for tying in colours in a bouquet! Cherish is a pale yellow with a pinky purple burgundy kiss that is incredible for using in bouquets to tie in with other blooms of pink, purple, or burgundy. Bowser Denyse is a beautiful pink bloom with white petal tips that help to tie in white blooms or other pink blooms….
Fillers! While we are quite partial to a vase full of just dahlias, filler flowers and greens are always handy and afford variety, texture and interest to bouquets. Some of our favourites are zinnias, cosmos, honeywort, bouquet dill, peony foliage, marigold gem, feverfew, borage, statice, asters, strawflowers, phlox, euphorbia, eucalyptus and in mid-late September we love to use dahlia foliage for greens in bouquets!
Freshness! Fresh flower bouquets are not meant to last forever. Dahlias typically last about 5 good days in a vase. Cut blooms before they are fully mature ~1/2 to 3/4 open. They may open up a wee bit after blooming but generally not much and hardly at all if cut at the 1/2 to 3/4 open stage. Cut blooms in the cool of the morning and place directly into cool clean water. Keep the water in the vase fresh – change it daily if possibly (most importantly in the first few days while the stems are still taking up water). Bouquets displayed in a cool area will last longer than bouquets displayed in a warm area.

Grow Beautiful Dahlias!
Make Beautiful Bouquets!
Enjoy the Dahlia!!!

Dahlia

All the ways to mix up dahlia varieties… The Dahlia Dish January 14, 2024

January 14, 2024September 13, 2025 Medeek Meadows Dahlia Farm

The humble gardener knows that even with years of experience growing dahlias its dead easy to mix up tubers leading to unknown and mislabelled varieties. There are folks who aren’t at all interested in tracking the names of the dahlia varieties they grow. If you’re in this group, you still might find it handy to label varieties according to height and colour so you know where best to plant them in your garden (i.e. short pink vs tall pink is about all you need on the label). Then there are folks who meticulously label and track every variety by name and number (call me crazy but count me in!). I need to know who’s who in my zoo… I love the names! A name has meaning – it has a story – familiarity – and maybe even gives our gardens a bit of personality!

Its almost impossible to grow just a single variety of dahlia. It can be done, but why would anyone want to? …I’m not judging you’re judging 😉 … Back to the topic of this post, mixing up tubers. You’ll never do it if you only grow one variety!

Top 10+ ways to mix ’em up (in no particular order of “likelihood”)

Buying tubers
- Somebody else did it! Somebody already mixed up the tubers before you got a hold of them! Instead of seeing the beautiful soft yellow bloom of “Cherish” gracing your garden for the first time, you find yourself scratching your head gazing at a tall peachy pink beauty and wondering what the heck is this?
Planting time
- Mapping mistakes! You didn’t plant “Jabberbox” where you planned to and then you didn’t update your map and then you forgot what you did in the spring and then “Carl Chilson” shows up where Jabberbox was supposed to be… summertime gets busy!
- Most gardeners do not plant their dahlias in rows with 1 variety per row and marked/mapped accordingly. Maybe your dahlias are sprinkled throughout your various garden beds beautifying your landscape over the summer. Mapping along with a labelled tuber or a labelled stake by each dahlia can help you keep things straight.
Verification and correction of mistakes
- When the blooms are bountiful, it’s the perfect time to check that labels match varieties and correct errors. If you have errors and don’t fix them during the blooming season, you won’t get another chance and will be more likely to perpetuate the mix ups next season and possibly for other people if you’re sharing your bounty of tubers.
Digging
- Remember when it comes time to dig up the dahlias in the fall, there’s often a good chance that the blooms are long gone. While tubers can have “distinguishing” characteristics, they usually aren’t obvious enough to determine what variety you’ve just dug up. Once the blooms are gone there isn’t much else aside from a good labelling/mapping system to identify the variety. If you’re growing multiple varieties in the same garden beds, a good labelling system is helpful.
- Digging and processing one variety at a time will minimize the chance of mix ups
Processing & Packing for storage
- Again processing one variety at a time helps to minimize mixups
- If you come across a stray tuber or clump of tubers that you’re not positive “belongs”, make a note of it and label as “mystery” accordingly
- Watch out for spills! Sometimes the work area can get crowded! Safety first! Minimize tripping hazards. Carry only one tray of one variety at a time! You wouldn’t be the first to dump a tray of “healing” tubers that lands in another tray of another variety.
- Avoid placing multiple varieties in the same bin! Stick to one variety per bin. Label each bin and place another label inside the bin with the tubers.
- Be wary of old labels on bins. Plastic storage bins should be washed after every use and old labels removed.
Winter Storage
- Always a good practice to check on your tubers from time to time during the winter months to ensure they’re storing well. As with digging and processing, when checking tubers in storage, check one variety at a time to minimize opportunity for mix ups.
Multi-tasking
- One job at a time!
- If you think you’ll remember, you won’t! If you think you’ll forget, you will!
Labels on plants
- not all labelling methods work well out in the garden. Regular sharpies work “ok” but not great and are very prone to fading away to the point of being illegible at the end of the season when you really need to be able to read the label. The finer the tip, the faster the fade. Use an indelible ink permanent “Nursery Marker” – they are the bomb. Whether they are in direct sunlight or hidden in the ground – they are 100% legible at the end of the season.
- label one variety at a time! Applying the wrong label to the wrong tuber has been done before!
- We like to use a combination of different coloured surveyors flagging tape on plants when needed, and we use wired vinyl labels on tubers before we plant them.
Cuttings
- mislabelling a tuber is one thing…
- when you take cuttings from a mislabelled tuber – you unknowingly propagate 5 plants of a variety – but which variety? Maybe you’ll get 5 “Crazy Love” plants instead of 5 “Peaches N Cream” plants! Be cautious – it can happen. The risk can be higher with cuttings taken from “new to you” tubers which you have never grown before and thus never had the chance to verify the blooms match the name.
- mixups in the trays can also happen by taking a cutting and putting it in the wrong tray to root…
All the varieties!
- the more varieties you grow – the more important it may be to develop good habits and good systems if you want to keep an accurate inventory.
Helpers
- Pets and little people have been known to move things around and maybe even chew up labels! Double or triple labelling redundancy can be helpful 😉

At the end of the day… find a system that works for you! Grow beautiful dahlias! Enjoy the blooms and share the joy!

Dahlia

Dahlia tubers or cuttings or seeds?…the Dahlia Dish January 8, 2024

January 8, 2024January 12, 2025 Medeek Meadows Dahlia Farm

All the ways to grow beautiful dahlia blooms… from tubers, cuttings, or seeds? Which way and why?

Dahlia Tubers

Our #1 choice. Growing dahlias from tubers is the easiest and most reliable way to grow dahlias “true” to variety. This is by far our preferred way to grow dahlias. The benefits:

easy as pie – they require the least of amount of work, equipment, supplies, and time.
they are more forgiving than a cutting. When you acquire new tubers, they don’t usually require too much coddling from the time you receive them to the time you can plant them (after your frost free date). Store them in a cool, dark area until you’re ready to plant. Keep an eye on the humidity so that they don’t shrivel up if its too dry. Plant them out when the weather looks favourable.
if you happen to get a late frost after you’ve planted your tubers where the frost kills off the new growth, as long as the tuber is in good shape it will usually do its best to put up new shoots and carry on growing. While your plant may get set back a couple weeks, it’ll still grow from the tuber and produce some nice blooms for you.
All growing conditions being equal, our own experience has shown us that dahlia plants grown from tubers consistently produce more viable tubers (tubers with eyes) to harvest in the fall than the same variety grown from cuttings.
while dahlia tuber “mothers” can and do sometimes succumb to rot after planting out, the young plant can often be saved simply by gently digging up the plant and removing the rotting tuber and then replanting. A young plant that starts to look “wilty” or fails to “take off” is a sign to check the mother tuber for rot.

Dahlia Cuttings

Our less appealing choice for growing dahlias true to variety is via cuttings taken from tubers. We’re sometimes asked if we sell dahlia cuttings and our answer is “no”. Growing dahlias from cuttings is not new… but…interest in growing dahlias from cuttings spiked in Canada in 2023/24 possibly sparked by the desire to provide or acquire “unicorn” varieties that are new, hard to find, or stingy tuber producers. Some will find success in buying and selling dahlia cuttings in Canada and some will not. A cutting taken from a plant can be used as a sort of “insurance” that you don’t lose a plant (ie. varieties whose tubers don’t store well or one that doesn’t produce many or any) or to capture a sport or simply to acquire a new variety. If you’re intent on growing dahlias from cuttings, you’ll still get some nice blooms, but temper your expectations for tubers. The cons of cuttings to be aware of :

Disease, if present, is propagated faster. Cuttings should only be taken from clean stock that is known to be disease free. If a tuber happens to have a disease and 10 cuttings are taken from that tuber – you’ll achieve 10 diseased plants. There is also risk of spreading disease amongst cuttings taken from “clean stock” if they share a tray with a diseased cutting or if sanitation of tools used to handle and take cuttings is inadequate.
Growing from cuttings demands additional care and attention and resources. Cuttings require more work, equipment, supplies, time and knowledge than growing from tubers.
Cuttings are more fragile and are more difficult to ship successfully than tubers. Failures during shipping are more common with cuttings than tubers due to the sensitivity of young plants and the shipping conditions they must endure.
When you receive a cutting, you may need to pot it up into a larger pot right away to prevent it from getting root bound (if you’re hoping for tubers) unless you intend to grow it on as a pot tuber. You may need to get it under grow lights until your frost free date allows planting out so that it doesn’t get weak and leggy.
If new growth on a plant grown from a cutting gets killed off by a late frost, there is little chance that the new root system will be able to put up new shoots leaving you with an empty space to fill in your garden.
Tuber production from cuttings can be hit or miss. Cuttings that become root bound stay root bound. Some varieties may do better with regards to producing tubers than others. The method used to take a cutting may influence tuber production. If your cutting doesn’t produce tubers, you might need to accept that you’ve grown a dahlia like an “annual” and try again next season. As with growing from tubers, some varieties are known to be great tuber producers, while others may only produce a few.
Splitting clumps of tubers grown from cuttings is not as satisfying or enjoyable as splitting clumps grown from tubers! They are often “hairy” with lots of feeder roots and few viable tubers to harvest. It takes more time to get the job done, and with fewer viable tubers at the end of the day.
Waste! There is typically a lot of plastic used in the process of generating cuttings. Plastic pots, trays, and shipping containers. While some of it may be recyclable requiring more energy to process and reuse, much of it ends up as trash in landfills.
The price point… How much are you willing to pay for a cutting? What should the price be? Should it be more or less or the same price as a tuber of the same variety? Would you expect a cutting to cost less because they don’t always produce tubers and often they produce fewer tubers than a plant grown from a tuber? Demand and time will tell…

Seeds

Dahlia seeds do not produce dahlias true to variety. This means that seedling blooms usually look substantially different from their parent dahlias. Growing dahlias from seeds can be fun but is not for everyone because you just never know what you’re going to get! Colour, form, height, growth habit etc can be so wildly different! Genetically dahlias tend to revert to their less desirable traits – single blooms on tall plants. Dahlias grown from seed will usually produce tubers that can be harvested in the fall to store over the winter if you like them well enough. Growing from seed is how new varieties are developed and they take a bit of time (at least 2 years) to come to market and longer to become widely available.

Hopefully you find these musings helpful… may you have a ton of fun growing beautiful dahlias from tubers, cuttings or seeds this year!

Dahlia

Early Dahlia Blooms…musings – The Dahlia Dish July 14, 2023

July 14, 2023July 14, 2023 Medeek Meadows Dahlia Farm

When all your friends are happily sharing their first dahlia blooms…its mid-July already and your own dahlias are “taking their sweet time” to bloom …. Why!?!

Medeek Meadows Dahlia Seedling ID: 2022-049
First Bloom Date: June 28
Started early indoors: Yes
Locale: Terrace, BC, Canada (frost free date approx mid-May, first frost date approx mid-October)

“All good things come to those who wait” may be true! But! If you really want the earliest possible dahlia blooms gracing your garden, there are a few things that you can do. Here are some tips that might help you get earlier blooms next season…

Select dahlia varieties that are known to be earlier bloomers (our website shop includes a filter for “bloom time” that you might find helpful)
Give your dahlias a head start by eyeing up the tubers and potting them up indoors
Pot up (transfer to larger pot as necessary) your early indoor starts and transfer them to an outside greenhouse when temperature permits
Transfer those greenhouse plants to the outdoor garden after your frost free date
Plant your earliest varieties first and put them in the prime location of your garden – where they get all the sun and all your attention!
Ensure your dahlias are well fed from the start. Doing a soil test is helpful for both the novice and experienced gardeners. Fertilizers can be expensive – relatively inexpensive home soil test kits can help you determine exactly what nutrients you need to target. Garden soil is often nitrogen poor, which leads to lack of vigour and susceptibility to disease and slow growth. Be careful with adding too much nitrogen – you want a good balance – follow recommendations for application from your soil test!
Avoid crowding your dahlias such that they get outcompeted by their neighbours which may set them back.
Elliminate bugs and slugs that will set your dahlias back and in turn delay blooming.

You don’t NEED to do any of the above! Aside from selecting “early varieties”, the rest all take extra time, effort, and resources. If you prefer the “keep it simple and easy” type of gardening, its just fine to plant your tubers out directly into the garden near your frost free date and let them do their thing. Depending on your location in Canada, your first blooms will start appearing anywhere from June (early varieties in warm locales) thru September (late varieties in colder climates). In Terrace BC, dahlias really start putting on their show in late July. They are a favourite flower for so many folks for so many reasons and in particular because once they start blooming, they bloom continuously until the first frost (remember to dead head plants to keep them blooming).

Medeek Meadows Dahlia Seedling ID: 2022-056
First Bloom Date: July 11
Started early indoors: Yes
Locale: Terrace, BC, Canada (frost free date approx mid-May, first frost date approx mid-October)

…until next time, we’ll be out in the garden paying special attention to disbudding for longer stems and better blooms…enjoy the ride…take time to smell the roses…Grow Beautiful Dahlias!

Dahlia

Just say no…to slugs – The Dahlia Dish May 22, 2023

May 22, 2023May 22, 2023 Medeek Meadows Dahlia Farm

If you have a lot of slugs, you’ll have a lot more slugs if you don’t do anything about it!

It was happy hour and I put in a pretty good day! I enjoyed a cold beer in the sunshine and got to thinking… I don’t want to jinx myself by saying this out loud but “I haven’t seen a single slug in the last few weeks”. Earlier this spring I lifted a board in the garden and found a big old kinda dead looking slug along side a cluster of slug eggs – I found two clusters which I quickly ended! Since then, nothing…it might be a wee bit early to start seeing them on the regular. I’m just in the midst of serving up the biggest smorgasbord of the year – new dahlia greens… so I’m very interested to see how things progress in terms of slug pressure this year.

Last year we endured inconceivable slug pressure early in the season when the dahlias are just trying to get their feet under them and I’m pretty sure it was my fault. I spent hours and hours hand picking slugs off the precious dahlias… mostly tiny skin coloured baby slugs smaller than the size of a dime…some smaller, some bigger. For about 4 weeks, I was out in the patch every morning and night for a total of about 4 hours per day hunting slugs.

What to look for: If you find leaves with holes in them or chewed edges, you’ll likely find slugs as the culprit early in the season (May/June). When the plants are small with only a few sets of leaves, they are most vulnerable. Once the dahlias get ahead of the slugs, slug damage is less of a problem. Heavy slug damage can make a dahlia plant look stunted, with curled leaves that have been damaged by the slimy little pests.

When to find slugs on your plants: very early morning and late evening or the middle of the night with a headlamp!

The tiny slugs seem to cause the most damage because they are harder to spot and when you think you’ve got them all, you probably have not! They hide under the leaves, and even tuck themselves into spaces where the stalk of the dahlia emerges from the soil. I had thousands of these slugs… it wasn’t uncommon to find 10 of these little buggers on one plant in one morning and find 10 more the next morning! Where were they coming from and what did I need to do differently?!!!

I realized I had some bad habits that needed to change: piles of pulled weeds in every row left for extended periods, pots full of pulled weeds left for extended periods, and possibly “strategic” tarps left down over the winter.

For the past year, I have been dedicated and disciplined about not leaving piles of pulled weeds in the beds or on my pathways – no more leaving pots full of decomposing weeds in the garden and I didn’t leave any tarps down over the winter. I went thru all the effort to do the weeding, but because I didn’t “finish the job” by immediately moving that stuff to the compost, I created more work for myself that would turn out to be extremely time consuming – dealing with slugs and lots of them! They love things like big pots and wood and piles of decomposing plant matter to hide under for shelter during the day. All are intimate hideaway havens for slugs to meet up and make egg clusters – how many eggs in a cluster? LOTS!

So far… it seems that easy… remove all those things that make inviting slug habitat and you will have way less slug activity in your patch! I’m expecting that a few slugs will show up for the party soon, but I’m hopeful there won’t be the thousands and thousands experienced last season. Fingers crossed! I’m ready for them with my bucket of salt water and good clean garden habits! …

Dahlia

The Dahlia Dish … April 8th, 2023

April 8, 2023April 8, 2023 Medeek Meadows Dahlia Farm

When do you plant your dahlias outside? … or maybe the more common question is – how early can I plant my dahlias?! A good question! The answer(s) depend mostly on where you live and when you expect your last frost. An easy rule of thumb to remember is to plant your dahlia tubers when the lilacs start blooming.

If your tubers are in cold storage, take them out to warm up and eye up just a couple weeks before your frost free date. This is not absolutely necessary, but if you have any “blind tubers” in your bins, then it’ll save you planting any duds.

If you are eager to get your beauties started earlier than your frost free date (perhaps you live in a really cold climate with a short growing season), you’ll need grow lights, grow room with lots of space, and a heated greenhouse would be excellent. If you have all these resources, then you can get started almost anytime. It is a fair bit of work, but its not work if you love it right?!

What if I plant my dahlia tubers out in the garden before my frost free date? If you’re a risk taker or maybe you like to push the boundaries or maybe there is another reason that you’d want to plant your dahlia tubers outside before your last frost free date (maybe you’ll be away during that peak planting period which is mid-May for us in Terrace). I have planted my dahlia tubers out in the garden in mid-April in Terrace, once because I was going to be away from the end of April until the first week of June – I came home to lovely dahlia plants happily growing. Another time I had all my dahlias started early and they had lovely green shoots with beautiful sets of leaves. I hardened them off outside for a few days and then planted them out – the very next morning we had our last frost of the year and as soon as the frost melted all my beautiful dahlia plants wilted from the nip of frost. Had I covered them with frost cloth, they may have been protected enough and carried on without any damage.

If you must plant your dahlias outside in the garden before your frost free date, here are a few things to consider.

If the frost nips your dahlias new growth, all is not lost. If the tuber is in good shape it will push up new shoots. The frost kill will likely set back your dahlia’s growth by a couple weeks.
If you plant dahlia tubers out early, know that they won’t do much growing until it warms up. Its kind of like putting them in cold storage out in the field – but where they are potentially subjected to additional abject conditions like risk of bugs/pests, rainy weather (a lot of rain and poor drainage can lead to rotting of tubers), frosts (kills off new growth and sets back new growth by a few weeks if your tuber doesn’t rot)

So what do we do at Medeek Meadows? We wait for the lilacs to bloom – mostly! We get our dahlias eyed up ahead of time by moving them out of cold storage as much as a month before our frost free date. Some varieties take longer than others to eye up. We check the weather, and look for signs of frost in the forecast – those mornings after a brilliant sunny day with clear skies at night are the ones to watch out for. Most of our dahlias are field grown. On our mission to get earlier blooms, we look for varieties that are earlier bloomers rather than getting them started early. Dahlias typically bloom from late June until frost. At Medeek Meadows Dahlia Farm in Terrace BC, we don’t expect or rely on June blooms. We usually start seeing dahlia blooms in our bouquets by mid-July. This is always weather dependent – and if we get a cool, wet summer our hopes for July blooms diminish… Dahlias are usually “full-on” in August and September. Dahlias like summers to be the same way we do – moderate warm temperatures, not too hot and not too cold with lots of sunshine.