Garden

[gardenman]

I learned something I never knew before about dahlias in this weeks "Gardener's World." The show visited a commercial flower producer in Great Britain who grew dahlias and he showed how much better the flowers were from dahlias that had been grown from cuttings rather than from tubers. I've known you could start dahlias inside early and take cuttings to make more dahlias, but I never knew that the cutting grown ones produced better flowers.

Jim Crockett in his early "Victory Garden" programs on PBS used to start his dahlias inside early and take cuttings, but that was apparently more to get more plants for the price of one tuber. I never knew the flowers from the cuttings were better.

So, today's project is to start the four dahlia tubers I've bought this year (two Motto and two of Kelvin Floodlight) inside and get them growing then I'll take some cuttings and see what happens when they all get planted out later in the year. Will the cuttings produce bigger, better flowers? I'll find out later this year.

My local Walmart has lots of dahlias to choose from in two-packs for $5 each two-pack, so the investment if pretty low. (You can easily spend five times as much online for the same tubers.) I've got some potting mix, the pots, and time, so I'm giving this a shot and we'll see what happens. I'll plant the cutting grown ones and the tuber grown ones side by side so it'll be easy to compare and contrast the results. They'll be in as identical conditions as it's possible and we'll see what happens. 

It's yet another rainy day here today, so this is a good indoor project for me. Dahlia's reportedly root quickly and easily so by mid-May, dahlia planting time around here, I should have the four tubers and a handful of cuttings ready to go.

[PINKdogWOOD]

Ahhh Dahlias so lovely all of them, all colors, single, bi-colors, even tri-colors all on the same stem @gardenman   You've chosen a lovely flower to grow and enjoy this summer. We always have dahlias each season, I love to choose crazy color combos that we may find. Just this week I was shopping in Aldi's and found a few packets there. I didn't look at them though I should have. They would've been nicer to gaze at then what food I could find, how meats I was permitted to purchase in this time of craziness.

Dahlias make beautiful cuts for vases indoor too, don't forget to bring some in once they begin to show all their rainbow pleasures.

[gardenman]

I've grown dahlias in the past on many occasions, even starting some from seed, but the news that those grown from cuttings gave bigger, better flowers than the ones from tubers surprised me. Cuttings are genetically identical to the parent plant so you'd expect identical results, and the cuttings aren't saving any energy as they're making tubers while the parent plant already has tubers. Both examples the grower showed on the program though were clearly better when grown from cuttings of the parent plant.

It's kind of an interesting phenomenon and one I'm looking forward to testing here in my own garden. It's one of those things that doesn't seem to make much sense, but the examples he showed were quite impressive. One almost looked like a completely different flower.

I'm an old gardener who's been around plants my whole life and it's rare that something new pops up that I haven't heard about, and this is something I'd never heard about. I've known you can grow dahlias from cuttings, but I don't remember ever hearing that the cutting grown stock produced better flowers than the tubers. You would expect the opposite. The cuttings have no reserves to draw upon and need to make tubers from scratch, which you would think would steal energy and produce fewer, smaller flowers. However, that doesn't seem to be the case. It'll be fun to see how it works out in my garden and if I can see any difference between the two.

[drizzellla]

Thanks for the information.

When we first bought our house, I bought tubulars of Dahlias. They were the hit of my flower garden and so beautiful. When cold weather came, I dug them up and followed directions so I could plant them the next year. Well, that didn't happen.

I have bought MANY dahlias since then. And have been disappointed every single year. 

Maybe I will dig out my plant lights and plant books and take a trip to Walmart. Last time I went past Lowe's (Monday) they only had pansies. Did not look at the plants at Walmart.

Thanks again for mentioning it. Have to go to Walmart to pick up prescriptions so it will work out nicely.

[gardenman]

All four dahlia tubers were showing some signs of growth and are now potted up. We'll see what happens. I went ahead and started up my tuberous begonias I held over from last year also. I'll try taking a few cuttings of them to see if the cuttings perform better than the parent plant also. They're a totally different type of plant, but it might work. Who knows? There's only one way to find out.

I'll have to poke around the internet and see what I can find out about why cutting grown dahlias perform better. It seems illogical, but the guy from England was quite emphatic about it and the flowers he showed certainly looked better from the cutting grown plants. Maybe the cutting causes some sort of a growth hormone spurt that benefits the plant? It would probably have to be something hormonal since the plants are genetically identical. 

[Lori Kaye]

I may try this sometime because this is my husbands favorite flower!  My question is what would you do with these plants in the fall since there is no bulb?

[AuntG]

Such beautiful plants. I seem to have heard about growing from cuttings, but I just plant the tubers. Will follow your reports on how they are doing. Good luck @gardenman .

[gardenman]

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@Lori Kaye wrote:

I may try this sometime because this is my husbands favorite flower!  My question is what would you do with these plants in the fall since there is no bulb?

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The cuttings still form tubers, so you can still harvest them in the fall. Oddly enough, one site I've poked around at (Seattle dahlia society maybe? I've been all over the internet this morning) said the cuttings produced more and better tubers as you can plant them deep like tomatoes and they'll produce tubers all along the length of the planted stem and not just at the root zone. A tuber grown dahlia they say may only produce three new tubers a year, but one grown from a cutting can often produce many more tubers since it's producing them all along the planted stem.

No one else that I've found so far says the cuttings produce bigger, better flowers, but most sites agree that the cuttings flower earlier than the tubers. That once again kind of implies that a growth hormone of some sort is involved. 

I'm guessing that a cutting when cut off from the tuber knows it needs to grow fast so it produces extra growth hormones that get it to grow bigger, faster, flower earlier, and produce better flowers. It's kind of an interesting thing. It's a bit unexpected, but it makes some sense.

It could also be that those saying the cutting grown ones flower better are hindering the tuber grown ones by taking cuttings from the tuber grown ones. Maybe if cuttings aren't taken the tuber grown ones would be better? It's pretty neat stuff to play around with anyway. I'll have to see what happens this year.

[gardenman]

I never got around to taking the dahlia cuttings as I'd planned to. (Life got in the way.) I finally got the big plants planted out a few days ago. In the planting out process a couple of shoots broke off, so I went ahead and plopped them into some potting soil just to see what would happen. No rooting hormone, no high humidity bags, or anything. Just plopped them into some damp potting soil and set them under the lights.  After wilting the first day they've now revived and are putting out new growth. They may be the easiest plant to root I've ever rooted. This is absurdly easy. It'll be a few more weeks before the cuttings are big enough to be comfortable putting them out, but dahlias may earn the award for the easiest plant to root from a cutting. The cuttings weren't carefully prepared, there was no clean edge, just a couple of broken off stems that I plopped in damp soil and away they've gone. Neat!

[AuntG]

Interesting @gardenman . I wouldn't have thought a cutting would work, but I only think of dahlias as growing from tubers. By August, I'll expect pictures from you.