Cutting Garden Dahlia Mix

Bought as bulbs, judged as bouquets. This is a mixed selection rather than a single variety: the tubers are graded from a cutting-garden block, so the colors that come up are the ones in these photographs — magenta, orange, white, violet, yellow, deep red. Nothing is coordinated in advance, and that’s the point. A bucket of mixed dahlias cut on the same morning looks better than a bucket of one variety, because the eye needs contrast at close range.

What you get

• A mixed grade of tubers with visible eyes, packed in peat. Expect roughly five to seven distinct colors across a pack of ten.
• Stems long enough to cut — around 15 in from the crown on most plants.
• Bloom sizes from 3 to 6 in, mixing small decorative types with larger doubles.

An honest note

Mixed packs are not a way to guarantee a specific color. If you need a fixed palette — all white for a wedding, say — buy named varieties instead. If you want a cutting garden that looks like a cutting garden, this is the cheaper way in.

Cutting

Cut in the morning, into cool water, and strip the lower leaves. Change the water every two days; dahlias in warm, dirty water collapse in three days and last a week in clean water.

How to plant

• Soil temperature matters more than the calendar. Wait until it holds 60°F / 15°C at 4 in deep — normally about two weeks after your last frost.
• Lay the tuber flat, eye up, 4–6 in under the surface, and leave 15–18 in between plants for airflow.
• No water until shoots appear. A dormant tuber in wet soil rots in about ten days; roots don’t form until the shoot breaks through.
• Six hours of sun minimum, and a stake in at planting time if the variety runs tall. Driving one in later spears the tuber.

Hardiness & season

• Perennial in USDA zones 8–11, grown as an annual or lifted and stored over winter in zones 3–7.
• First flowers 8–10 weeks after planting, then continuous bloom until the first hard freeze.
• Pinch out the growing tip at 12 in for a bushier plant with more, smaller stems — skip it if you want a few large blooms.
• Keep cutting and deadheading. A dahlia allowed to set seed stops producing buds, and the September flush never happens.