One of our latest plant obsessions is the Dahlia, since growing them from seed and realising just how easy it is to get many years out of these lovely plants.
Perfect for pollinators, as cut flowers and for bold borders, we absolutely love the diversity of plants that can be grown from seed.
I first attempted these many years ago, with a tray of seed under my living room radiator. It was so successful it led me to grow them every year since and as you collect your own seed at the end of each summer, your collecting a huge batch of genetics for the following year!
Dahlias often flower late into autumn which makes up for the time waited for them to blossom.
We dig up the underground tubers when they finish flowering and bring them into a dry area. If you have space, you can put your tubers into dry sandy soil and keep dry and frost free.
When spring arrives and frost is clear we can put them back outside and enjoy their beautiful flowers for another season.
Sometimes, tubers left in the ground here, survive the less harsher winters and come back stronger than ever!
Care Tips
Rabbits love Dahlia tubers!!! If you do decide to leave your plants in the ground over winter, you may benefit from covering them with something so they cannot be eaten!
Tall Plants will benefit from support. Plant supports can be bought online or in garden shops and can be placed around the young plant to grow through and not fall over.
Any soil will do. We don’t find these to be particularly fussy in terms of soil and have grown them in good and bad soil. You can always give them an organic plant feed to give them a boost before flowering but we only do it if were giving everything else around them a feed.
Grow from seed! There are so many different varieties of Dahlia available to grow from seed and we would recommend it to anyone. We start some seed off early in February, indoors under lights and have really good results. They like to be warm and humid and once they pop through will grow quite quickly. A simple windowsill propagator will do!
If you’d rather read about growing vegetables, see our page ‘The Edible Garden‘ to have a look inside the old greenhouse that’s being transformed into a permaculture garden.
More on the blog
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