If you purchase rooted dahlia cuttings (or make your own!), you’re in for such a treat. Growing dahlias from these small plants is a fun and easy way to enjoy dahlias in your garden. Often blooming before tuber-planted dahlias, rooted cuttings bloom and grow vigorously and produce a small tuber clump at the end of the season.
Care instructions:
When you receive your rooted cuttings, you should:
- Remove from the packaging immediately. Inspect your plants to make sure they made the trip safely, and let them breathe. (They’ll feel the same way you do after a long road trip!)
- Pot up your dahlia right away, and water in well. Be sure to completely cover the soil-less medium that surrounds your dahlia roots when you pot them up. A 4″ pot with regular garden soil or potting soil is perfect for this. Your dahlia will be ready to settle down and have a good drink after its journey to your garden.
- Allow your plant to acclimate to your growing zone for at least 2-3 days. We don’t recommend planting your dahlia immediately into your garden, as this might be too stressful for it. We do our best to harden off the cuttings before they leave our farm, but our climate is likely different than yours. Your dahlias need a little time to get used to your garden’s temperature, wind, and sunlight/shade level/day length. We recommend starting out in a very protected spot, then gradually exposing the plant to your garden situation before finally planting. Be sure to protect your cutting from family pets, curious toddlers, and voracious slugs while it acclimates!
- Plant out in your garden after all danger of frost. Once your nights are consistently NOT-frosty, plant your rooted dahlia cutting right into your garden, and water in. We freely interplant rooted cuttings with tubers, since the soil in our garden drains well. At our zone 7b farm here fairly near the coast in Western Washington, we’ll plant our rooted dahlia cuttings out into the garden in early-to-mid May.
- We feed our dahlia cuttings (and dahlia seedlings) with a balanced fertilizer at planting, and then again mid-summer. We water immediately after planting, and then again weekly or anytime the soil is dry! Happy growing!
Want to learn more about growing dahlias?
The Garden is a positive online membership community offered by Triple Wren Farms. Membership includes:
- First access to TWF tuber and seed sales
- A wealth of flower garden How-To topics
- Frequent seasonal Live Trainings and Q&A’s
- Our “Anyone Can Grow Dahlias” e-course
- Personalized gardening advice
- Encouraging gardening community and more…