When Lynn e-mailed me to ask if I could write about our experience growing dahlias as cut flowers, my mind went back 20 years or so when my partner Bob Soucie and I were just getting our start. What we would have given for just one article about growing any kind of flower! I marvel now at not only GFM articles, but also the books written on the subject of growing flowers for farmers’ markets and roadside sales. Books! What a country.

Still, there is no replacement for experience. “Experience” is just a nice way of saying you’ve been around a while and have already made most of the mistakes necessary to learn something. I could write volumes on what not to do when growing cut flowers, but other than a good laugh at my expense, it wouldn’t help you much. So here it goes; no charts, no graphs, no trials, no metric measurements, just a little simple guide even I can understand.

Varieties
When you start looking into growing dahlias, you soon find out there is a whole world of varieties and colors! Pom Pom, Cactus, and Dinnerplate are the three common types of dahlias. Years ago we tried growing dahlias from seed but you get a pretty weak plant and not much cutting. Now I go for the tubers, which is the most available and reliable way to go. Tuber size can range from a single tube cut away from the clump with a portion of the stem attached, to an entire clump from the previous year’s harvest. We grow them both ways, but we seem to get a better bush from the whole clumps.

For cut flowers, I would stick to the Pom Pom and small Dinnerplates. The Cactus work too, but don’t hold up nearly as well after cutting.

Planting
We are blessed here with sandy, well-drained soil and abundant irrigation. I’m sure it’s not necessary to have sandy soil, but I know that Dahlias don’t like wet feet. Grow them on your high ground and make sure you can get water to them when necessary. Our rows are 36” apart and we space the dahlias about 12” apart in the rows and plant them 5 – 6” deep. We use overhead irrigation for watering. Be careful to just irrigate in the evening so the moisture has time to evaporate off the petals before the heat of the next day. Probably trickle irrigation would be the best choice to avoid the water sitting in the petals and burning.

We spread about 200 lbs of Ammonium Sulfate (46%N) per acre before planting and work it into the soil. Then I will usually side dress with Liquid Urea (28%) at about 40 Gal. per acre just before the dahlias begin to bloom. Harvest is usually hot and heavy for about 8 weeks; they then seem to take a breather for a week or two before coming on again. It’s a good idea to side dress them again during that breather so you will have good quality right up till frost.

Speaking of frost, make sure you plant well after danger of frost because young dahlias are very tender.

Harvesting and sales
We like to cut our dahlias with about 50% color showing to full bloom. Contrary to past cultivars, today’s dahlias make a very nice cut flower. They are tender and we usually cut them as close to time of sales we possibly can. We cut our dahlias in the morning, sleeve them in the field, chop off the ends and immediately put them in cold water. Into the warehouse they go and they are not handled again until the customer buys them at the farmers market. We use Floralife in all of our water and keep our buckets clean. The Pom Poms will last a good week and the smaller Dinnerplates last 5-7 days.

We usually sleeve 5-6 stems of Pom Poms per bunch and 3-4 Dinnerplates per bunch depending on the head size. Needless to say, you really can get a lot of bunches out of a patch of dahlias! We sell them at farmers’ markets for $3.50 per bunch and the visual impact on your stand is priceless.

Dig and store
In the fall after frost in Zones other than 8 – 11 the tubers must be dug or sacrificed to the winter. It’s quite a job but the tubers can be dug and shook off of excess oil, dried, then packed in peat moss in black plastic bags for the winter. Store them at 50 – 60 degrees until spring when you can unpack them and start the whole process over again. Personally, we get a new crop of tubers from Holland every year and toy with storing them ourselves. That way I know I’ll have a crop. There’s that “experience” showing up again.
So there you go! Dahlias are not all that tough. Of course, you can make it harder on yourself by staking them all and putting trickle irrigation under the rows. Only you can decide whether the extra labor is worth a few broken stems. Good luck and happy cutting!

Craig Schaafsma sells dahlia tubers and other plant material. You can see his products on his web site, www. kankakeevalleyflowers.com. Or phone 877-729-6040.