Dahlia Tubers 30-Day Update - May 2026

In mid-April, I began unwrapping, dividing and potting-up my dahlia tubers.  And, I ended up with more than 90 one-gallon nursery pots of tubers.  Were all of them viable?  I wasn't sure.  But, today, I am feeling a higher-degree of confidence in what the viability-rate looks like.  By early May, many of them were sprouting, but some still lagged behind and didn't get started.  I tried to get a good division that included a body, a neck and some portion of the crown.  Turns out, I didn't get it perfect, but did pretty well.

I recently moved the tubers up out of the basement window wells to the screened porch.  Below is a look at the layout showing more than 80 viable dahlias.  #6 on my 2026 to-do list was to "Go even Bigger on Dahlias".  I'd say that I can cross that one off my list:

Some are barely moving like this one below with a tiny bit of green foliage tipping through the potting mix:

While others are more than a foot tall like these:

Last year I 'pinched' off my dahlias and I'm doing that again this year.  Once they get their third set of 'true leaves', I have begun to ship off the leader.  

I'm not a dahlia tuber seller, but you can't watch anything on Dahlia-Tok without hearing about gall and other viruses.  One of the techniques that some professional growers use to keep disease from spreading is by sterilizing their tools.  I've adopted that in a small way:  with a 10:1 water:bleach mixture that I dunk my snips in to clean them.  Followed by a quick dunk in plain water to remove the bleach mixture.  Here's my little sterilization jar with my snips in them:

Not all of the tubers have three sets of (true) leaves, but eight of them have achieved that status (so far), so off-with-their-heads.  Here, below, are the tips that I "pinched" (snipped) off.  Here's hoping for 'bushier' plants this year:

The other thing that happened this week is that with the warmer temperatures, I've begun the hardening-off process on all the tubers.  Starting in the morning, I put all the containers out on the patio where they are in full-shade until mid-day.  On day one of the process, I left them out in the full shade for two-plus hours.  Here they are below in the shade:

Day two, they'll go out again in the morning for that two hours of full-shade followed by about an hour of sun.  Then, they'll come back inside.  Day three = even longer.  Day four = afternoon sun.  And, by Day five...I'll let them spend the night outside.    They'll end up being planted-in outdoors.  Last year, I put them in on June 10th - this year I'll aim for a week or so earlier.