Since all these tubers and pots are invading your house, I assume you are not married and that your dogs don't eat plants. I think you will find that the tubers will be spilling out of the pots. Please take pictures as I want to try pots next year as well.

I like this. I am doing some what the same thing. I have one tuber that I found two weeks ago in the bottom of my inside green house. It just started puting out leaves. It is now a foot tall. That will be grown all winter long. I have started taking cuttings from my growing dahlias out side. They are in the inside green house under lights. I will take cuttings from them as they progress. I too expect to have many plants in bloom by the first week in June. Five of those plants are spoken for all ready,if this works. So this will be a good winter for you and me Russ. Happy growing and up with Dahlias.

Q5- Reply: we shipped dahlias to Cape Town South Africa last Nov. after they grew all summer here. One of our customers planted them immediately & they grew & bloomed just fine after being out of the ground only the amount of time it took them to get there- about 1 1/2 weeks. The other put them in storage for 2 months & then planted them & they grew just fine.
Our daughter-in-law used to grow them in Arizona. She'd plant in Dec., they grew like crazy & bloomed by Feb. When the weather got really hot she cut the ones that turned crispy back to about 4" & they started growing again & bloomed again when the weather got cooler in the fall. They were pretty much a year-round flower. Some of them never stopped bloomng & seemed to take the heat better then others but on the other hand those were in pots under the canopy & had misters that were on pretty much all day so were cooler than the ones in the garden. I don't think dahlias really have need of a rest time with cool temperatures like tulips or daffs do.

Russ, I've tried something like this before but not in the large scale you're attempting. I don't know what grow lights you're using but you would need quite a few to accomodate those plants. Those ones you're planning to leave on the windowsill, I think might be doomed. You said you don't think there's enough light to grow orchids in that room because it's facing north?? If you can't grow an orchid with the natural light in the room. I doubt the dahlias have a chance. When they are all small plants it's probably ok with the grow lights but I think once they reach up to a foot tall, you'll have a big challenge with the lighting if you're not growing in a greenhouse. You may want to look into several metal halide or high pressure sodium fixtures. So.....GOOD LUCK!!! And please keep us posted along the way.

I grew two plants that were blooming under the lights last year so that should not be a problem for you Russ.

My plan this year was to use existing T5 fluorescents, 2 in a fixture, that produce a total of 8900 lumens. I planned on enclosing each fixture in a cabinet lined with panda plastic. I believe this should result in the plants getting ~12000 lux.

That's daylight, but not direct sunlight. I was just reading that I should be targeting between 40,000-60,000 lux to simulate direct sunlight. It would cost me roughly $2400 to add enough lighting to get into the direct sunlight realm, not something IÂm prepared to do at this point.

However, last year I grew my tuber sprouts and cuttings under ~2800 lux, with nothing on the sides to direct the light, and they did grow.

Cheers,
Russ

I have added floodlights to my indoor green house. They add light on the sides of my fixtures. I also found two cornel tubers that have decided to come to life. I will be building some more flower boxes. So this winter will be busy.

Does anyone know which State has the longest dahlia blooming tine? I might move there!

Sturgeonguy
In the spirit of experimentation, don't forget the lab coat and diabolical laugh.

Lol triple_b...;-] I will have to see what I can come up with, I think I might have a white house coat somewhere around...;-]...moooohahahaha...

pdshop...the longest state is...INSIDE!...because with the right treatment I think I could keep them in bloom year-round.

Cheers,
Russ

Hi Russ--

I wouldn't ever contradict Plantlady but it seems to me some of the tubers I've ordered over the years state something about the number of blooms one can expect over the season...hmmm, maybe that's assuming per 'summer' growing season.

Q7: If you plant in areas that have less than full sun you will find your dahlias getting quite tall (and less bushy)in an edeavor to find the light. Otherwise, just cut off side sprouts.

Q7: How large a clump could you possibly have in a 4 inch pot? If they are potted in a sterile, soil-less mix and you let it dry out before storing, I don't really see any reason why you couldn't store them in the pots. That logic make sense to you?

Best regards from NY,

Lucinda

If you store in the 4" pots, stack them on their side so any moisture that remains has a chance to drain & they will air out better that way. We have a few friends in England that only grow from Pot Tubers & this is how they store them.

misslucinda- No one can tell you how many blooms you are going to get from a plant during a growing season- there's lots of considerations to look at- the amount of fertilizer you use, the length of the growing season, the temperatute & humidity, the amount of disbudding you do.... far too many different conditions to be able to predict how many blooms you will get. That being said, there are some dahlias that do bloom more prolifically than others -- notable the minis & BB & all the open centered stuff will put out more blooms than an AA or A ---& I can see a company claiming prolific bloomer- but as to stating the number of blooms to expect? That's really sticking your neck out & pretty much impossible to predict.
All I know is from our own experience & what we hear from customers-- dahlias don't need a cool rest period like daffs & tulips do -- a bit over two months after we dug them out of our garden where they had bloomed all summer they were in full bloom in South Africa.

pdshop- If you want to live in "Dahlia Heaven" you have to move to the Pacific Northwest-- anywhere from the Oregon border to the SW of BC-- takes in a lot of territory so you should be able to find a nice place with good dahlia growing ground :)

Thanks Plantlady, that is what I thought as all the growers seem to be out that way. Questions to all... Are their any dahlias that can stand some shade. My evergreens are squeezing my light more and more each year?

Thanks for the replies so far, IÂm surprised more people havenÂt chimed in with their random thoughtsÂthis thread isnÂt meant to be a definitive anything at this pointÂitÂs all speculation, observation, and guessing for now.

Pdshop, youÂre right, IÂm not married. My dogs have shown an inclination for playing with tubers that were put into a low propagation tray last year so I am taking precautions not to do that again. They have left the plants themselves alone. I will be taking as many pictures as I can.

Viking, glad IÂll have someone to trade results with throughout the winter, this is going to be fun!

Plantlady, your observations are pretty much what I expected. Your remarks, coupled with my own cutting experience last winter, tells me that a tuber is a sprout factory more or less for life. I had it in my head that a tuber, once it had produced a plant, was pretty much spent. I realize, however, that I took many cuttings from a single tuber last winterÂso why couldnÂt they do it year after year too?

With no replies to some of the questions so far, hereÂs my plan:
A1: I am going to simply cut the tubers at the pot boundary on the assumption that I can get enough whole tubers in each 4" pot to propagate what I need for next year.
A2: IÂm going to keep one or two cut tubers as an experiment, but for the most part I am planning on tossing those that end up with a large cut.
A3: I am going to bring the pots in as soon as the stalks are cut and place them in my propagating cabinets to allow the eyes to form. I am going to try and wash out most of the soil from the pot and then place them in the trays, then put a small amount of water into the tray to feed the roots.
A4: Thanks Plantlady and misslucinda.
A5: Thanks everyone.
A6: For those varieties that take a long time to bloom I plan on starting them as soon as theyÂre out of the ground. As a tuber eyes up I will cut it from the original clump and put it into its own pot. I am interested in seeing whether plants grown from tubers, as opposed to cuttings, exhibit any differences (Faster growing? Better growth? Higher survivability?)
A7: Thanks misslucinda. IÂll cut off side branches.
A8: Guess weÂll just have to see what happens. Hopefully my experiments with the existing blooming plants will give me a heads up as to what to expect next spring when there are too many plants for the cabinets.

Cheers,
Russ

If you want to live in "Dahlia Heaven" you have to move to the Pacific Northwest-- anywhere from the Oregon border to the SW of BC-- takes in a lot of territory so you should be able to find a nice place with good dahlia growing ground :)
* * *
I second plantlady. We are in the Okangan and take a trip to Vancouver Island most years and so pass through this amazing growing country.

I don't know if this information will help you or not. I live on the CA Central Coast. I leave my tubers in the ground all year long. They are still blooming quite heavily right now and will through December. I cut them to the ground when we have a light frost or they start dying back. We have all of our rain from Dec. to April. They seem to do fine in the ground and don't rot. They come up again around March. I let Nature take over and they do their own thing. I think they are hardier then people give them credit and can put up with a lot of conditions. I have been growing them for over 30 years here that way.

aptosca You have been around a long time so where are the pictures dahlia?