Hi I'm Sarah, plant geek and dahlia grower from Christchurch, New Zealand.
After months and months of dreaming about it, I launched a small scale cut flower farm in 2017. Generous friends made part of their property available me to tend and develop. I began by growing dahlias as cut flowers and to make the tubers available to you!
Cut Flowers:
All dahlias look great in the garden and can be enjoyed as cut flowers, but some are more suitable as cuts than others.
Generally small to medium sized blooms are easier for florists to incorporate into bouquets, but larger ones are sometimes used for installations, arches, large vase displays etc.
Usually blooms that have many layers of petals last much longer in the vase than more single varieties.
Dahlias are non-toxic and can also be used to decorate cakes or platters.
I have made notes in the shop product descriptions about the varieties I found most suitable as cut flowers.
The other characteristics that make for great cut flowers are long and strong stems. You can also increase stem length by disbudding, but generally a taller plant will produce longer pickable stems. I have listed the plant height and bloom size in the descriptions.
Dahlia Tubers:
The dahlias are supplied as single tubers, or ocasionally a small clump. All a dahlia needs to begin its life is a growing point (an eye) for the new shoot and a tuber, which provides the initial food source for the plant.
A tuber with no eye cannot grow. Neither can an eye that is not attached to its tuber food source (if the neck of the tuber has broken or become dried out).
Tuber size does not indicate size of the plant. A single tuber will grow into a complete plant and produce a clump of tubers within one growing season. Soon after planting, more roots and the beginnings of new tubers will start to form beneath the main shoot.
After one season, you can usually find several tubers with viable eyes for the next season's growth - so that you can divide your plants to multiply your stock if you wish to.
All dahlias listed in the shop have been grown and photographed by me. My small team and I have lifted, cleaned and divided each tuber. (Pictured above: several divided tubers being trimmed).
I have taken great care to keep everything labelled and matched with a correct photograph!
