3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
You usally get the small border type dahlias when you buy seeds. The fully double, quality dahlias are from tubers - after many years of trials to get good ones. Dahlias aren't true to type when grown from seed- if you take seeds from a nice double dahlia you won't get the same dahlia from it's seeds the next year.
Yes, if you plant the seeds they will grow & bloom the same year & grow tubers that you can harvest & share the next year.
You didn't say what size dahlias you want but if you want the tall plants with larger flowers swallowtail seeds is a good place to go. They offer two different packets of seeds. One of cactus style flowers with plants that grow 4 to 5 feet tall and decorative style flowers that grow 3 to 4 feet tall. I've tried both a loved them. They were all different and you didn't know what they would look like. They all bloomed first year. They will bloom a little later than tubers (about three to four weeks). I guess because they have to develope their tubers. Therefore I started them early inside. It's a lot cheaper with seeds than buying tubers.
If you start them early inside you might what to get tall thin stakes for each one because they may have weak stems and fall over causing crooked stems. Also when first planted outside the wind broke many of the stems off of mine. After the've been in the sun for about three weeks and the stems strengthen you can remove them. Remember that they will need staking again when they start approaching three feet tall.
You can get anything but hopefully you will get a large dahlia. I started seeds from Gladiator AA-ID-R in 2007 and got a couple large ones but they didn't have enough petals and they were large open centered dahlias not worth keeping. The only good one I kept from these six seeds was a B sized variegated that was pink and purple.
Growing seedlings is like Christmas, you don't know what you have until it blooms and that is what makes it so interesting.
Wynne's Dahlias has been taking orders for a couple of months & still has lots of great ones for you to order- plus they always give a nice freebee -- or lots of nice freebees if your order is big- usually at least one for every order & anything over $25 gets you an extra one for each $25. I've ordered from them for years & never been disappointed.
Here is a link that might be useful: picture albums
Viking! I purchased them as tubers....Yes please post lots more picture...maybe it's the weather, but I sure love looking at those beautiful flowers. I just ordered a bunch from Connells and Swan and I keep hoping you will post pictures of varieties that I have purchased (it's always nice to hear how they did in someone elses garden)
Jan
Happy New Year everyone! So glad the holidays are over. Now I can get on to the important stuff -- growing dahlias(just kidding!)
I grow over five hundred cuttings every year and will do over a thousand this year. I love planting and it looks like something is there. My plants from cuttings produce flowers much earlier than the tubers, but I do start some in January. True, some don't make many tubers, but others do very well in the tuber arena. One thing to remember when planting is to be sure at least one leaf node is buried, and a pair of tubers will form there.
I plant a display garden at our local grocery store. All the plants there are from cuttings and I leave them in 4" pots in the ground. They grow into beautiful plants -- people can't believe they are in 4" pots. When the frost comes it is so easy to pop them out of the ground and put them away. In the spring when they sprout again I cut them into sections to plant.
Taking cuttings is the best way to save varieties that don't store well, or make many tubers.
Teresa
this is good news to me. I wanted to give a dear friend a tuber of Wheels a couple years ago but my Wheels only produced one viable tuber and this one didn't survive the winter storage. I reordered Wheels from a different grower and hopefully this year I can take a cutting from it to give to her so she can have her own this year and from here on in.
Was it just my tuber or plant or does anyone else find Wheels to be not a huge producer of blooms (wonderful though they are) and not many tubers either?
Chilsons Pride  early and constant bloom, medium stems, verrrrry productive. Couldn't fill vases fast enough to keep up with it. Lovely too - and I'm sooo not a pink person!
Chilsons Pride is probably the best cut flower of all time. Nearly everybody who sells cut flower dahlias has grown it. In some years, it has been the top selling dahlia at Swan Island Dahlias. There is a very interesting story about how it came to be named Chilson's Pride even though it was bred by Nick Gitts of Swan Island Dahlias. It seems that Carl Chilson(a commercial dahlia grower in Washington State) was visiting Swan Island Dahlias and he spotted a bright pink seedling in the seedling patch. He pointed it out to Nick Gitts and Nick said "if you want that one you can have it, we have plenty of pink dahlias." Thus Mr. Chilson released Chilson's Pride and Swan Island eventually acquired it to sell also. Sort of like the big fish that got away.
check out crazydahlialady.com
Thank you for this website. I'm going to check it out now.