Yes, I know its February, and in Chicagoland that means snow and it means cold. It also means that the 2019 dahlia season begins! The Central State Dahlia Society recently had a tuber auction. We bought some and Mike will be down in the basement next week planting those and the tubers we stored over the winter.
Jim Kassner auctioning plants at Central States Dahlia Society tuber auction
The question is, where should you buy dahlias? Well, that depends. The first thing to consider is whether you should buy a tuber or a plant.
- Start tubers inside like we do and you can start any day now, take cuttings, and make many more dahlia plants from that tuber. That’s a lot of effort and requires the right conditions and some know-how.
- Start inside 6 weeks before the last frost to get a tuber rooted to plant after the first frost.
- Plant a tuber directly outside two weeks before the last frost here in zone 5 and you won’t get dahlias till September. We personally don’t want to wait that long. If we are buying dahlias in May, it will be established plants instead of tubers. Check out a local club like ours for their sale.
Buying guide:
- Dahlias at big-box stores may have names, or they may simply be marked as a mix. You need to know the name if you want to enter some competitions, and those competitions may require the dahlia to be recognized by the American Dahlia Society. Otherwise, you may not care. Certainly it can be more “iffy” when you don’t know what you are buying.
- A more expensive dahlia may be costly because it is a new variety or doesn’t make tubers well. A more expensive dahlia does not mean its a better dahlia. Check out the American Dahlia Society for top performers like the Fabulous Fifty.
- Dahlias can be 1 foot tall border plants or the 5 foot tall variety we like. They bloom as small as golf balls (Poms) or as large as dinner plates (AA size). You can NOT tell the size of the bloom from the picture – a close-up picture of a small flower can look really large. This Bristol Stripe Mike bought recently at Home Depot doesn’t state the size, and its hard to tell from the pictures. It also says “Plant once for color all summer”. We know it won’t bloom till August, and that assumes we’ve grown the tuber inside and then planted the rooted plant after the last frost.
- If you are going to buy one dahlia that would be big and “could not be killed by a lawnmower” (as Frank Campise, Mike’s mentor, would say), Kelvin Floodlight is the dahlia you want.
Some options for buying tubers:
- The auction was a good place for us to buy dahlias that are hard to get or already out of stock on-line, even if we paid more. Arrowhead Dahlias, for example, has many varieties marked as sold out already.
- On-line sellers will usually take orders early (December for example) and ship them at a time that is right for your area. Swan Island Dahlias is one we buy from.
- Garden centers may have the tubers, and I like to keep local businesses in business – but a garden center that hasn’t opened yet is not an option.
- Big-box stores are absolutely an option. Our Meijers and Home Depot have them in now and Costco will soon.
Spring will come…it will, it will!
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