Yes I've heard they can be dug up and stored if they're not hardy for you, but I've heard they're very difficult to store over the winter.

Really pretty! I've had a love hate relationship with dahlias. I have not been very successful in over-wintering them so sometimes I feel like they aren't worth it. But seeing these pictures makes me rethink that.

This is the only one I have. Pinelands Princess.

That Karma Bon Bini is beautiful, I Was eyeing a few of the Karma types this spring but got distracted by other plants and never ordered. Maybe next year!

I'm at a dahlia low right now. I’ve had years where they were all over but the digging and storing and Finding spots to plant in the spring gets annoying, and I cut back for a few years. These are the survivors!

Cab84, I really like your orange cactus mislabel, even without a name. How do you feel about the color?

Everyone, your dahlias are gorgeous !!

Katob, here's 'Karma Gold' and 'Karma Choc' as of today ... the latter being the better performer, but neither coming even close to the amazing display of 'Karma Bon Bini', though all are keepers!

'Karma Gold'

'Karma Choc'

So are yours! I'm amassing ideas for next year. The zinnia did so poorly I'm thinking of slotting more zinnia in to compensate.

Not flashy but works well for me in a container.

MYSTIC ILLUSION:

Rouge, that dahlia is gorgeous though !!

Cancun

Park Princess

The red one is Cornel, and the pink / cream was supposed to be from a divided Tanjoh but the petals are different. Don’t know the others. Double delight roses, buckwheat and cosmos make up the rest.

Red Pigmy

Firepot

The background plant with Firepot is Salvia Mystic Spires, new to me this year. Nonstop blooms all season. It's an annual here and I'll buy again next spring.

Karma Choc

Kelsey Annie Joy

I planted three tubers Bora Bora in in 10" pots of in early May. The first and buds is still trying to open on one of the two tubers that survived!

Here’s one I posted on Insta. I’m taking cuttings to grow indoors for the winter before this one goes dormant for the winter season

Bora Bora

My first year trying dahlias and i'm in love!

creme de cassis

Emily I grew Creme de Cassis last year and loved it! Everyone commented on it when they saw it in a bouquet. Unfortunately for me either the tubers didn't overwinter or they were one of the ones that I never got around to digging.

Unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of it. I don't think it matters though since photos just don't seem to do it justice!

:)
Dee

Photos today to preserve the beauty before tonight's freeze. 29 F forecast.

Karma Choc, Red Pigmy, and Mon Amour. Mon Amour was the last to bloom this year.

Here's a few I cut two days ago. Unfortunately I wasn't good with labeling them when I first planted them last year, so I'm not sure of IDs. :(

The one in the middle is just gorgeous - the camera doesn't do it's lovely soft colors justice!

I believe this is either Fleurel or White Perfection. Again, sorry, my camera isn't the best. This one bloom is a whole bouquet. About 8.5 inches across. Includes a tiny spider living in it lol.

:)
Dee

Dee, the shape of that middle one is perfect. Beautiful geometry.

I just started using whites in the garden to any extent this year--that just got added to the list to order. Thank you, Dee.

Everyone's dahlias are so luscious! Loving this photo thread.

I want to encourage people to try saving tubers to keep their favorites. I have actually had excellent luck, maybe 75% survival over several years and I do nothing complicated. Some dahlias make better tubers for storage. I've had Mon Amour six or seven years now from one purchase. I've bought Chat Noir three times due to death over winter. Karma Choc keeps better for me but not as reliably as Mon Amour. If they don't make it, it's not you, it's them! I cut the plants to stubs the height of my hand and dig the roots. I brush the big chunks of soil off with my fingers. I drop the dirty, intact clumps in open bags, one variety per bag, so I know what they are. All the bags go together in a cardboard box, no lid. I put the box indoors out of the way at normal house temperature. Done.

Edie, I've had fairly good luck with overwintering as well, but I'm always looking for tips. When you say you drop the clump into a bag, what kind of bag? Plastic grocery bag, paper bag, ziplock, etc.? Any media in the bag? Peat, perlite, etc.? Or any media in the box?

You really just leave yours in the house?? What approximate temp is your house in the winter?

And then I guess you separate them in the spring? I have such a hard time finding eyes in fall, but last year I tried my best (years before I separated in spring). Last fall, if I couldn't find any eyes, I cut the clump in four quarters, with a bit of stem on each quarter, and then looked for eyes in spring.

Also, I'm so glad you picked up on the form of that dahlia in the middle! The colors are just gorgeous, but the symmetry of the bloom was amazing as well. The petals opened more the next day, which IMO isn't as eye-catching, but I'm still enjoying it.

:)
Dee

Yeah, Edie, spill please, because my survival rates run between 0 and 30% in paper bags, with light misting when they start to wilt and look like dried, ancient tubers. I just lifted most of my dahlias today with incredible care as temperatures are due to dive well under freezing and they were ready to lift.

:-)

Seriously. Bags. Boxes. Room temp. Ignore. Right-O. I'm trying this in the laundry room.

ETA: I keep nothing complicated. Thomas Edison. Garden Wonder. Otto's Thrill. Some purple and white thing I picked up at the grocery store. A Procyon. A Babylon Red here and there, maybe. Whatever I like. Year after year I buy different ones. Year after year I happily start them in pots in April in just faintly moist, loose, well-aerated, incredibly well-draining soil, watching over them. Year after year I watch them rot in three days and have to go buy new tubers.

I live in a small apartment, so my choices are simple: outside to freeze solid, or inside around 70 F. Outside they would all die, so every single one that lives is a bonus. That's why I'm encouraging everyone to try and see what happens. I count any clump with sprouts as survived even if it's down to one good tuber, so my math may not match yours.

I have no idea how much of my success is luck. I use whatever bag I have on hand that they fit in together. Plastic grocery bags, various sized paper bags from stores. If paper's not working, try plastic, just no completely sealed zipper bags. I don't add any media but I don't wash the clumps either. I grow in pots in pine bark and bagged potting mix and some of that clings to the middle of the clumps. I think that plus the fact that I have several clumps per bag gives them just enough moisture to keep many of them alive.

I wait until spring to do any cleanup or division of the clumps. They usually sprout much earlier than I want them to and if I had space I'd try taking cuttings. My last frost date is mid-May, so I wait until May to cut and plant. First I clean off the dead tubers and then if I still have a clump, I divide according to where the sprouts and good tubers are. I put the fresh-cut tubers immediately into damp potting mix and go from there. Usually I don't have space inside, so my dahlia starts go in 4" plastic pots in trays on the porch. If a freeze is forecast I bring them all into the kitchen overnight.

I do the same for four o'clock tubers. It did not work for me on Black and Blue salvia.

Good luck everyone!

I brought the pots in considering I just got the very first blooms. They are growing well so far and I fully intend to let them bloom though the winter with whatever sunlight they can get from a southeast facing window and supplemental led growlights.

Edie thanks for the update! It's funny how different methods work for different people! I have read sooo much about overwintering dahlias in my gardening lifetime, and I have tried at least four or five different methods, all with varying success (although each method was absolutely sworn by by the person suggesting it lol!).

This past winter I had what I consider really good success - at least 75%-80% of my tubers overwintered, and I had dahlias coming out of my ears. I was going to pot them all up and give many to my coworkers but then my job got shut down because of the pandemic, so I spent the spring trying to find spots in the garden for all of them! Several bit the dust while waiting to get planted.

Also, because I ran out of pots, I tried a method I found online where you just lay the tubers in a tray of potting mix (like a seed-starting tray, shallow and oblong). This worked, but then I wondered about planting depth - since the soil in the tray was so shallow, the tubers started leafing out very close to the actual tuber, and I wasn't sure if you could bury the stems on a dahlia like you can on a tomato lol. So some of those weren't very strong growers, although many did recover.

Anyway, if anyone is interested, I overwintered mine last winter by getting a couple of large cardboard boxes (at least 2'x2'x2', or a half foot bigger all around - I had about 70 dahlias to dig up so I needed a lot of room!) and put newspaper in the bottom, then layered peat moss with tubers and more newspaper - like a lasagna. I ever-so-slightly misted the newspaper, and then ever-so-slightly misted the peat moss before putting the next layer of newspaper down. If I recall correctly, I think I washed the tubers and let them air out for a day or two before packing away. As I mentioned, I tried to find the eyes and divide, and if I didn't see eyes I cut the bunch in four quarters with a bit of stem on each quarter. I left the boxes in my unheated basement, which probably stays in the mid-40-degree range for the winter. I did check them in maybe February but not very thoroughly - just a quick peek at the top layer.

I was lucky enough to have a few that I didn't lift come back! I was very pleasantly surprised. None of the ones in pots, that I didn't get around to lifting, survived outside, but about 3 or 4 of the in-ground ones came back for me.

I'm still cutting some blooms - the weather has been quite mild. I've been out in the garden in short sleeves in late October, which is unusual. This week is suddenly much cooler, and next week forecast to be even colder, so I'm expecting the frosts will come soon and it will be time to lift and start all over again!

:)
Dee

P.S. - getgoing, what a lovely color! It will be interesting to see how you do over winter with those. Be sure to update us!

Morpheuspa, I forgot to add, I'm leaning toward that white being Fleurel. I'm the worst person in the world at identifying things (hence my inability to identify my dahlias even with a list and photos of the ones I bought lol) but of the two whites I think it may be (Fleurel and White Perfection), one of them, at least when it first starts to just open, has a looser petal configuration, and I think that one is White Perfection. The bloom in the photo above did not have that looseness.

Hopefully this helps you make your choice. Although I don't think you can go wrong with either. IMO they are both "perfection in white"!

:)
Dee

My dinner plate Dahlias are blooming the size of little chrysanthemums but they still have buds so not too bad.

Amber, what is the name of your first dahlia?? It’s stunning, like all of the others. I just like the colors on that best.

debra

My photos from this year’s blooms turned out terrible, but I managed to grab a pretty one last year. Hope it makes you as happy as it makes me!

Unfortunately I don’t have any of the names since these all came in a pack of border dahlias I purchased at Sam’s Club. It was my first time growing them and I’m already making plans to expand to dinner plate dahlias this year.

Burgundy Bambino dahlias.

They’re short and single and put on a good show.

Check out these beautiful dahlias in Virginia! https://wineandcountrylife.com/elizabeth-lockes-secret-dahlia-garden/

My plants are still just foliage but this was my inspiration garden- I chose all the flower varieties with pink in them. https://wineandcountrylife.com/elizabeth-lockes-secret-dahlia-garden/

This is one from costco. sorry i did not note the variety name

Forever, your dahlia is a looker !! :)

No blooms quite yet, but coming on soon! This is 'Karma Choc'

Here’s a pic of the seedlings formed by this summer’s mother flower shown. I wonder what colours the flowers will be.

They will likely mostly be of pink tones, possibly white as well, only time will tell, please update us as the time comes :)

The dahlia seedlings all grew well. i gave them all away except for one. i’m not sure i liked the flowers on any of them. they were all variations of fading orangey red. they all held their colour best in shade. here’s a pic, taken today, of the one i kept.

That's a nice color, I like it more than the mother plant.

It's nice to think about warm gardens on days like today.

Clark, your dahlia is glorious and healthy as can be! My problem is acquiring clean stock, bagged dahlias many are virused and so also sometimes from specialty growers deepening on their quality control. Once virus is spotted it needs to be culled, sucking insects can easily spread disease from plant to plant, here we have large numbers of tarnished plant bugs that not only do their physical damage, but again also spread diseases.

That purple one! how lovely!

Thanks!

It just came from the grocery store in a box. I’m not sure what variety… I started it indoors in late March, and the top pic was in October before the first big freeze.

I wasn’t aware of the virus issues. That’s a bummer. I think I am hooked on dahlias though!

Me too. My no. 1 rule for choosing plants for my garden is that they have to be slug-proof, but I break that rule every year for dahlias.

Yeah, unfortunately really have to watch out for leafy gall disease and several leaf diseases that can in a short period of time spread throughout one's entire collection that the plants become unproductive and must be destroyed, been there done that, sigh!

I can second the fact slugs love dahlias