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!
