Starting (More) Dahlia Tubers From Bonny Blooms - May 2026

Last week, my set of tubers from Bonny Blooms arrived (finally) and I quickly got to work planting them up in one-gallon nursery containers.  I ordered seven total dahlia tubers from Bonny Blooms in November 2025.  This was the first time I have ordered from Bonny Blooms and selected four different dahlia varieties:  Bell's Palermo (1 tuber), Peaches-N-Cream (2 tubers), Crichton Honey (2 tubers) and Brown Sugar (2 tubers).  These all were dahlias that I came across in year-end videos on Dahlia-Tok that growers/flower farmers have raved about in terms of how they look and how prolific bloomers they were in their own fields.  

I was getting a little impatient because my order from Bonny Blooms had not arrived, so I went to their site where on the homepage they have a little 'chat' widget in the bottom corner.  Based on some advice on a dahlia-growing Facebook group, I pasted my order number in that chat window and inquired about shipping.  A day-or-so-later, I received an email saying:  your order will ship in May.  One day, a shipping notification arrived in my inbox and then a few days later a small box arrived.  

Historically, I've bought my tubers from Longfield Gardens - both direct and via their bulk packs at Costco.  I've bought a couple of packs of tubers at Menards, too.  In both instances, the tubers from Longfield Gardens and from Menards were 'clumps' of tubers around a crown.  The tubers tended to be smaller, but there have always been multiple tubers with each order.  

Bonny Blooms tubers, on the other hand, came as individual tubers.  

You can find out more of the Bonny Blooms story on their site.  They're based in Washington state and are a real family farm.  

I ordered two Crichton Honey tubers and I received exactly that: two individual tubers.  Each of their tubers arrived with the body, a neck and some of the crown.  All of them APPEAR to have at least one eye (so that's good).  And, a few of them had gone beyond eyes and had sprouted like this one below:

Bonny Blooms packages each of their tubers neatly into this well-labeled bags (compostable), so you know exactly which tuber is which:

Here are a few more tubers from Bonny Blooms showing the eyes and growing sprout from the crown of the tuber:

Here, below, is one of the multiple-tubers they shipped (this is Brown Sugar Dahlia) that isn't as far along as some of the others:

And, here, below is the compostable shipping bag labeled as Brown Sugar dahlia tuber from Bonny Blooms:

I potted these seven 'fancy' (as I'm calling them) tubers like I did with the rest of mine:  a coffee filter in the bottom of a one-gallon nursery pot, followed by a handful of potting mix.  I nestled the tuber into that base of potting mix, topped it off with more mix, labeled it and watered it in once.  I have learned to not water any of my tubers until I see a bunch of top-growth.  I'll handle these the same way.  

Here they are having been potted-up below. 

Now, we wait.

A thought on Bonny Blooms (and perhaps most small-scale/large-scale tuber sellers): The late arrival of tubers was a surprise for me.  As a first-time orderer from Bonny Blooms, I only had my experience with Longfield Gardens to compare to when it comes to delivery dates.  Longfield Gardens shipped my new tubers the first week of April.  Bonny Blooms shipped five weeks later.  

Based on what I'm seeing on Dahlia-Tok the past month-or-so, it seems that MANY dahlia growers and tuber sellers take cuttings from their tubers that they started earlier this Spring and get those cuttings to root.  Thus, producing EVEN MORE dahlia plants.  A cutting that they root in Spring can become a tuber by Fall.  Thus, increasing their supply of tubers they can sell the following year.  

Is that why Bonny Blooms holds onto their tubers until early May?  I'm not sure, but my hunch is that they're taking cuttings from their tubers BEFORE they ship them off.  And, that's ok.  Just something to know when you order from them next year.  

As for whether I'd recommend them:  That's to be decided.  Let's revisit that question this Fall, once we see how the tubers they sent do out in our garden.