Dahlias

Dahlia flower rows in farm garden

Where do your dahlia tubers come from?

Our dahlia tubers are grown here in our home garden, surrounded by the beautiful trees and wild life of Nova Scotia. We're a tiny business, growing just enough dahlias so that we can still hand dig each plant come fall.

Our aim is to grow healthy, productive dahlias. We don't currently test for virus, but we do inspect our plants and cull regularly. Any dahlias that show signs of virus, disease or poor health are destroyed. Cutting tools are sanitized with a bleach solution between plants, when cutting stems, propagating cuttings and dividing tuber clumps.

What's a dahlia tuber anyway?

'Tuber' is latin for bump or lump. Dahlia tubers are little root lumps that store energy and moisture so it can survive and produce again the next season. Similar to potatoes (also a tuber), they're fleshy roots that produce shoots from growing eyes. Dahlia tubers vary in shape and size. Unless extreme, size is not an indicator of health. A small tuber will grow into a full size plant just as well as a large tuber. Often, we find that the small ones end up producing more tubers at the end of the season than the large spuds. Regardless of size, we ship single tubers with at least one viable growing eye.

If you receive your dahlia tubers and you're not ready to plant yet, choose a dark, cool location that's about 13°C to store them, possibly your basement, garage, cellar/coldroom. Make sure the temperature does not go below freezing or the tubers will not survive. Check on them regularly. If mold forms, wash it off and let the tuber air dry before putting it back in storage. Ideally, you would pot up or pre-sprout your tuber to get a head start on the season. More on that on our Growing Info page.

Growing Info