Demystifying Dahlias! How to Plant Them & Why I Prefer Pots

Hey guys it's Brijette with San Diego Seed  Company and this video is going to be about demystifying dahlias I'm taking the time to shoot  a very specific special video for all of you who have purchased our dahlias because we're getting  a lot of the same questions which is great that means we need to answer them and so I'm going  to be talking about the different sizes and the tubers or the clumps and what it means when you  plant them and everything that you need to know so that when you get y

our dahlias and you take them  out of the bag you're not so confused and you're confident that what we have sent you is going to  sprout and give you a beautiful Dalia bulb I like to say the dahlias are very much like people they  come in all kinds of different shapes and sizes the actual flower has tons of different shapes and  colors and the bush it can be very big it can be a short Stout plant one of the reasons why we love  dahlias is because they're so diverse it's really fun to grow a lot

of different blooms that's also  reflected in the tubers or the clumps that we send to you in your Dalia purchase what is really  amazing is depending on the variety the clump that you get can actually look very different from one  variety to another so typically what you're going to get is something like this now this is actually  a clump and so what it is is there's these these little danglies here and those are actually the  energy stores that send energy into the neck where you will get Spro

uts which will grow up into  your beautiful plant when we dig these out of the ground we try to include a little bit of the neck  and you can actually see on here there's a little bit of an eye forming now some of you may think  be thinking hm an eye is it related to a potato yes it is very similarly these energy stores are  just like a sweet potato or an Irish potato and they're going to send energy into the into the  neck which will grow up the leaves now I can't control everything that happen

s in shipping and  naturally guess what things are going to break one of these guys is going to break right off aha  did I just ruin this no I did not there's a bunch of different energy stores in there and just like  when you have a transplant if you break one little root the transplant can still absolutely live and  grow so although it's not ideal for one of these guys to get broken off this is still a completely  viable and happy uh clump to go into the ground now it's important to note that

these guys should  not be tossed this is also an energy source in fact a lot of professional Dalia Growers don't buy  them by the clumps they actually buy them by the individual tubers and they will Sprout these and  plant them and get their blooms we have seen both from our trials and from Trials of partner Growers  that actually the end plant that you get from something like this versus something like this  doesn't actually differ that much in size it's incredible so whether it's this that you

plant or  this don't miss out on the live plant matter that you have that can give you dahlias okay so let's  talk a little bit more about the anatomy so I can drive this point home so the neck is actually the  stem of last year's plant you see that here these are all the energy sources the older the plant  the more energy sources it will have built up so you could take a three 4y- old plant out of the  ground and it might have a lot of of of tubers dangling from it and those can actually be cu

t  or divided to give you more plants any of these energy sources are going to help to produce an  eye which will then Sprout just because one of these tubers falls off of your clump that does not  mean that it cannot produce an eye which will then produce a sprout and turn into a plant don't toss  any of these that that might have fallen off in shipment go ahead and plant them the easiest way  to do it is actually just put a tray of some nice seed starting mix moisten it lay it down flat and  l

et it Sprout and you can see the sprouts come up and then actually plant it out interestingly one  of the dahlias Growers that I love that I have followed and learned a lot about she actually  recommends that you plant small tubers that are about the size of a double A battery that's it  and she it's massive beautiful Bloom so whether it's this size or this size I promise you delos  are really easy to grow and plant the biggest key thing is dangles down I'm going to make that  like a sticker I t

hink that's funny dangles Down Neck up put it in a pot or in in in um the ground  where you know where they are each year and if you want to uh dig them back up you can and then  let them bloom and become beautiful gorgeous flowers that you enjoy all all season long so  you might be thinking well where did you learn all this Dalia information well interestingly  enough San Diego County used to be one of the biggest flower producing counties in the United  States all of North County San Diego use

d to be all beautiful green houses and our weather here  is really great for growing Dalia so we have tons of local Dalia Growers who have been nice enough  to share information with me and help me learn how to grow big beautiful dahlias I know you're  probably thinking of a very specific people who grow dahlias and flowers but I'm really looking  for local knowledge and that's who's taught us how to grow these amazing plants now let's let's  actually plant one together so that you can see how i

t goes it's so simple really do not overthink  it when you get your your dahlias you're going to pull them out of the bag and actually oh lookie  here I have some dahlias let me grab them so you're going to get your dahlias and we Shi them  in just plain paper bags I know the the the um the paper bag we put them in it's not fancy but  that's because they're not meant to live in here this is a live product and you want to plant it  right away so you're going to pull it out you're going to have yo

ur alien looking plant matter and  you're going to know that the dangles go down and the neck goes up now you may not be able to tell  on your clump that there is a neck and that's okay you don't have to take the time to to look  and be like oh is that a neck just know dangles Down Neck up you may get a plant where it's very  clear and easy to tell okay this is the neck you may not that is okay it's literally just going to  go into a pot with some nice potting mix I've got a little bit of extra

Peete moss in here I'm  going to put it about 6 to 8 in down and I'm going to cover it up that's it one of the things I  love about dahlias is I can do it with my baby on my hip it's so easy to plant them whether it's  in ground or in pots one of the reasons why I like doing it in pots is then I actually pull  them out and store them in the winter time and then I use the pots for something else you might  recall from last year's Dalia videos that actually all of these pots the ones that have let

tuce in  them they did have dahlias in them after they were done blooming I pulled those dahlias out and  then I planted lettuce in the winter time these are almost done I'm going to harvest and eat all  of these beautiful heads of lettuce and then I'm actually going to put dahlias in these pots so  nothing gets wasted and I'm using the pots year round From Here I Am the the soil is relatively  moist it's not saturated it's not a water log soil we actually did get a little bit of rain I might  w

ater the top of this slightly but I'm not going to water this regularly and consistently because  I'm going to wait for a sprout once I get a sprout it will use the moisture in the soil to start  growing if you start watering heavily before the Dalia Sprouts you do have the chance of rotting  the tuber so be conscientious of that somewhere between I'd say like 1 to 2 weeks you should  start seeing a little beautiful green thingy pop out of the soil and then you know you can  start watering the t

ubers are in full um growth mode and in a couple of weeks your plant is going  to grow up big enough that you can start staking it fertilizing it for flower blooms and before  too long you'll have gorgeous dahlias to enjoy