FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
WHAT IS THE NAME OF THAT HUGE DAHLIA BLOOM YOU ARE HOLDING IN THIS PICTURE?
That dahlia variety is called 'Maki.' On my farm, the blooms can reach 14 inches across.
DO YOU GIVE FARM TOURS?
As a small operation, we don't have the resources or the proper insurance to give farm tours. If you want to see what is happening on the farm day-to-day, please follow me on Instagram: @santacruzdahlias or Brion's behind-the-scenes Instagram: @dahliasplease.
DO YOU HAVE A U-PICK FARM?
No, all our cut flowers are cut by my helpers or me. I don't have the resources or the proper insurance for a U-Pick operation.
WHERE CAN I BUY YOUR DAHLIA GROWING OR DAHLIA BREEDING BOOKS?
Our books, Dahlias: Seed to Bloom, & Dahlia Breeding for the Farmer-Florist and the Home Gardener are available in soft cover or Kindle eBook format at Amazon. The book DAHLIAS: Seed to Bloom is also available as an audiobook on Audible.
WHAT DOES A GOOD BLOOM POSITION MEAN?
Good bloom position refers to the angle at which the bloom presents itself on the stem. Some varieties present their blooms facing forward, some upward, and some face downward (a dominant trait). I am looking for varieties that present close to a 45-degree angle from the stem.
WHAT ARE CUTTINGS?
Rooted cuttings are small plants that originate from a tuber. They ship in a protected clamshell and arrive ready to be planted in a pot or the ground. Cuttings are clones, just like a tuber. Like any other dahlia plant, they will produce full-size plants, blooms, and tubers in the first season. A few nice things about cuttings: First, they are about six weeks ahead of tubers, so when you plant them, you will get blooms earlier. The second is that sometimes tubers don't sprout, or they will rot if the ground is wet. Cuttings are live plants that you plant right away. It is recommended that cuttings be planted deep with at least two leaf nodes under the soil to encourage tuber production.
CAN I PLANT THE MOTHER TUBER AFTER MAKING CUTTINGS WITH IT?
This depends on how many cuttings one takes and the variety. With most varieties, the tuber can still be planted if one takes 4-5 cuttings. Typically, if one takes 10 cuttings, the tuber is spent and must be disposed of.
HOW CAN I AVOID POWDERY MILDEW ON THE LEAVES OF MY PLANTS?
The spores for powdery mildew are in the air all the time. There is no avoiding it. It is worse in some climates and mild in others. The white mildew on the leaves is evidence of the mildew blooming, which means it's been growing there for several months. Treating it once you see the bloom is too late. I start spraying my plants (underside and topside of leaves) from the time they are 8 inches tall to delay powdery mildew. I use Monterey Horticultural Oil, and I spray every 10 days through the entire season. I never spray in full sun. I always spray when it’s cool out in the early evening.
WHAT FERTILIZER DO YOU USE?
I use the no-till farming method, and my winter cover crop feeds the biology in my soil. That biology then feeds my plants. Mid-season, I will add a little blood meal to the soil because my soil test tells me my soil is high in potassium and phosphorus. Blood meal has nitrogen and no potassium or phosphorus. A fertilizing regimen is best based on each garden's soil tests. My favorite book on no-till gardening is called. The Organic No-Till Farming Revolution, by Andrew Mefferd.
CAN I GROW DAHLIAS IN A HOT CLIMATE?
With some extra work, you can. There is an entire section on growing dahlias in hot climates in my book, Dahlias: Seed to Bloom, available on Amazon.
WHY DO DAHLIAS GROWN FROM SEED LOOK DIFFERENT THAN OTHERS GROWN FROM THE SAME SEED HEAD?
Since dahlias are octoploids with four sets of chromosomes from each parent, the sky is the limit to the diversity of offspring form and color. A photo of a seed parent when buying seeds means less than we would intuitively think it does. On page 42 of my dahlia breeding book, you can see all those colorful offspring from the little white ball. If you save the tubers from this seedling, the plants and blooms that grow out the following year should be clones and look identical to what you have in the picture. Of course, sometimes varieties are genetically unstable, and they do change, but for the most part, they will be identical.
HOW DO I KEEP LADYBUGS IN MY GARDEN?
If you use ladybugs, one trick is to water down your plants before releasing them. They are like us, and they like food and water together. If they are released on dry plants, they will eat some aphids and then leave in search of something to drink. If they can drink right where they eat, they will stick around.
WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR OVERALLS?
My overalls are from Rosie's Workwear in Manhattan, Kansas. They make working clothes for women. I like them because they have removable knee pads for kneeling in the garden, have good pockets, and I like the colors.
HOW FAR APART SHOULD I PLANT MY DAHLIAS?
Typically, I plant tubers for B-size and smaller blooms 18" apart. I plant the large dahlias 24" apart. When I plant my seedlings in the ground, they are 16" apart. When I plant them in sinkpots, they are 4 to 8 inches apart.
WHEN SHOULD I "PINCH OUT" MY DAHLIAS?
I have a short video on pinching off young plants. Go to the Kristine Albrecht YouTube page and look for videos 180 and 186.
HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH POWDERY MILDEW?
I spray my plants (the underside and topside of leaves) when they are 12 inches tall to prevent powdery mildew. I use Monterey Bay Horticultural Oil and spray every ten days throughout the season. I never spray in full sun; I always apply oil when it is cool in the early evening.
WHEN SHOULD I START TO PRE-SPROUT MY TUBERS?
You would want to start the pre-sprouting process six weeks before planting. Watering is based on the room's temperature. At 65 degrees, I water every other day. Once it starts pushing a sprout, you must water it more as the tuber develops roots. Until then, water enough to keep the soil moist.
CAN DAHLIAS BE GROWN FROM SEEDS?
Dahlias grown from tubers are clones. They will look exactly like the parent plant the tubers came from. If dahlia blooms are left on the plant and not cut or dead-headed, they will make seed. The seeds will grow seedlings if collected and germinated the next season. Seedlings are not clones. Every seedling is a new variety with traits from two parents (pollen parent and seed parent). All of the many dahlia varieties we have now started at some point with a seed. I have written a book on how to breed dahlias from seed. It's available on Amazon and called “Dahlia Breeding for the Farmer-Florist and the Home Gardener.”
WHY IS THERE MOLD ON MY SEEDS?
I get this sometimes, too. First, some of the seeds that are molding could be non-viable seeds that are rotting and would never have sprouted under any conditions. You can squeeze them; if they feel flat and are papery and falling apart, they are not viable seeds. For the viable seeds that are molding, you can do two things. First, change the paper towel after 3 days. A new paper towel will reduce mold growth. Second, spray the seeds (off the paper towel) with a 5% bleach in water solution and put them back on a fresh paper towel.
DO SEEDS FROM THE SAME SEED HEAD PRODUCE IDENTICAL PLANTS?
Every dahlia seed is unique and unrepeatable. The resulting plants can produce blooms that look similar to each other. They can also produce plants with blooms that look completely different. There is no way to tell until you grow out each seed. I have taken seeds from a white dahlia that produced offspring that bloomed red, lavender, pink, etc.
DO DAHLIAS FROM A SEED PRODUCE BLOOMS AND TUBERS IN THE FIRST YEAR?
Dahlia plants grown from seed grow to be full-size plants, produce blooms, and produce tubers, all in one season, just like those grown from tubers.
DO YOU SELL YOUR SEEDS?
I don't sell seeds. All the seeds I collect are used in my breeding program.
WHY DO YOU SOMETIMES PLANT IN 4" SINK POTS?
I plant seedlings in 4” sink pots because I will pull out most of these during the growing season, and since the roots don't get entangled, they come out of the ground easily. If they were planted in the ground and spaced this close, when I would go to pull one out, it would rip all the roots of the plants next to it. Also, the benefit of keeping them in pots is that I get a pot root (concentrated tuber clump) at the end of the season. If the variety is a keeper, pot roots make lots and lots of cuttings in the cutting bed. You can do this without the pot if you want. The spacing of dahlias can be as close or as far apart as you want. The closer they are, the taller and leggier the plants will grow, and the more they will need to be staked well. I plant my regular dahlias in the ground 18 to 24" apart; the larger bloom-size plants get more space.
DO DAHLIA TUBERS NEED TO BE DUG UP EVERY YEAR?
The need to dig up tubers depends on where you live and your goals. People who live in cold climates have to dig up their tubers because if they freeze, they will die. In many climates (like most of California), they can be left in the ground and will regrow the following spring. I choose to dig up my tubers for several reasons. First, I am a no-till gardener, and I plant a cover crop to fix nitrogen and feed the biology in my soil in the winter. To do that, the tubers have to be removed. Second, I grow seedlings that I want to share in the world. Digging and dividing tubers is the only way to get my varieties out there. Third, if I leave my tubers in the ground, there is a risk of them rotting if we have a wet winter or gophers eating them. Finally, leaving the tubers underground for many years causes the tuber clump to get really large and, ultimately, very difficult to divide. So for distribution, soil fertility, and security, I dig my tubers out.
WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO DIG UP MY TUBERS?
It is best to dig up tubers after the plant has been in the ground for at least 5 months. Slowly wean the plant off of water over 3 to 4 weeks, then cut the plants off about 8 inches above the ground a week before you dig them up.
DO I NEED TO WAIT FOR FROST TO DIG UP TUBERS?
It is commonly said that one must wait until after the first big frost before digging up tubers. However, waiting for a frost is more about waiting than it is about frost. Frost does nothing to mature or ready tubers for digging. Maturing the tubers for winter starts at the solar equinox in June. Plants start maturing tubers when the days get shorter instead of longer. They are ready to be dug up 90 to 100 days after the June 20th Equinox. Waiting for the first big frost does give your tubers time to mature. However, you don't have to wait that long if you don't want to. Frost does nothing to mature tubers. I like to dig up my tubers in early October, a month or two before the first frost, because the ground is not too wet, and the weather is fun to work in. If I waited for the first frost, the ground would be muddy, and I'd be working in the cold and rain. For further proof that frost is unrelated to tuber maturity, consider that the dahlia is the official flower of Mexico. In most of Brazil, Mexico, Australia, and California, dahlia growers never get a frost but have successfully dug and divided their tubers for centuries. Frost has become a convenient placeholder in the calendar, but it’s not the frost; it’s about the passage of time after the summer equinox.
HOW DO YOU STORE YOUR TUBERS?
I store my tubers in plastic shoe boxes from the dollar store. I fill them with moist peat moss and then put them in a refrigerated shed all winter at 40-45 degrees F. I check them periodically to ensure they are not shriveling. If they are, I add a little more moisture. Having said this, how tubers are best stored is a regional issue. My way is best for the coast of California. You should talk to someone at the dahlia society near you and see how the best growers do it there, based on your winter temperatures and humidity.