Wynne's Dahlias are a very good supplier & they stand by their product. I've ordered from them for years & never been disappointed. Here's a link to their price list & photo albums- the albums are full of pictures of dahlias. You're better off going through a dahlia specialist than a company that has a little of this & a little of that- those ones don't know good dahlias & you very often don't get what you ordered. Most of the suppliers on the Colorado Dahlia Society list of Supplies & Suppliers are good dahlia specialists. Dahlias should be planted after all threat of frost has passed & the soil is about 60*. They just sit there & rot if the soil is cold. You can start them indoors in pots or some other kind of containers & get a head start on the season. Then when you plant out you don't have to wait for them to come up- they're already a nice sized plant. I have lots of spring-blooming bulbs in my borders that finish just about the time for planting dahlias--Tet-a-tet daffs esp. but also Hyacinths & Alum, Wind Flowers, Crocus-- you name it! Dahlias like a well drained soil. They rot if they sit in water. They like to be fed during the blooming season & if you feed them & keep them dead-headed they will bloom until frost. Here is a link that might be useful: dahlia Albums

Those are wonderful dahlias. They stay very compact and don't get tall and spindly. I can't remember if I even pinched them but to keep them compact, pinch them anyway. You have plenty of sun for them. I feel for you with the Voles. I lost all my clematis. They just tunneled down and ate the whole thing. It had taken 3 years for them to cover the arbor and now nothing. I have tried everything with the voles but my dahlias are in raised beds. I have never had voles there. Good luck.

>>morpheus, does splitting the tuber clump with half and half guarantee 'eyes' on both sides? I am a bit intimidated by splitting this fall/next spring. In my experience so far, yes--if you split the stem in half, giving half the tubers one piece of stem, and half another. You can split them more if the dahlia wants to do that, keeping bits of stem on each set of tubers. One of mine last year spontaneously fell apart into three. Two are in my garden, one is in my mother's, (Shhh, I don't always split. I actually like a multi-stemmed, wider, denser dahlia. It's a little more susceptible to powdery mildew, but I can control for that if I have to. Plus I have limited garden space for dahlia as they're used as accent plants). >>I gave fish emulsion at first for nitrogen, and now MG bloom booster and about 1/2 of my plants are starting to bud now. I do like fertilizing though, gives me something to do while I wait. ;) Cool! Mind the phosphorus levels over time, it takes a while for them to go toxic and toxic levels are very, very high. But over the course of years, it can get there. Mine's riding very high at the moment, so I'm limiting phosphorus sources for the next...well, decade or so! The occasional garden soil test is a good idea. Mine this year pointed out a modest calcium shortage (with the accompanying pH problem), and a low boron level.

I think you are doing ok. But if you find no tubers in the soil you must start over. Why not try buying from some of the cataloguers on the web. Steve in Baltimore