The Life of a Dahlia: Spotlight on Evanah
One of the most common comments I get as a flower farmer is “oh it must be wonderful, you get the winter off” - fellow flower farmers you may identify with this sentiment, please refrain from snorting in agreement as you read this… calm…. - and oh do I wish it was true. One of our main jobs in the winter is to mollycoddle our dahlias as we nurture them through the colder months so that we have plants ready to sell and tubers ready to go in the ground once the risk of all frost has passed.
In 2025 our last frost was on 17th April. In 2024 it was 7th May which is quite a swing time wise. It’s an anxious juggle of fleece in those spring days as we have dahlia tubers coming out of our ears, trying to predict when Jack will leave and let us get on with our serious business - hopefully below I can explain the process and what we produce.
1. What a dahlia tuber looks like
It starts here. Brown, wrinkled and knobbly – not much to look at, but full of potential. In Mexico I’m told they are grown as cow fodder and they certainly resemble a sweet potato like form. Apparently us humans can eat them too, although for me, much as I adore them, might be one step too far.
We store our tubers in crates through winter, then bring them out in February to wake them up to take cuttings. This is a dicey business - they need to be at around 15 degrees centigrade to coax them out of their winter hibernation when often it can be minus 4 outside. We have the use of a neighbour’s greenhouse and rather to the bemusement of my house’s fellow occupants, it’s the only time the underfloor heating goes on in my house. It’s strange how we receive many visitors when they know it’s dahlia time in Feb, the rest of the time our house is pretty Baltic.
A bit of warmth and a splash of water and they begin to send up shoots.
2. A Dahlia Rooted Cutting
Once shoots appear, we take cuttings – little green shoots we root in propagation compost to make new plants. I LOVE taking dahlia cuttings - you get the smell of the foliage at a time of year you really shouldn’t and it plays with your mind in March, when we are still at least a full 3 months off any flower production when we would start cutting and smelling that foliage for real.
This is how we multiply our stock. Each cutting grows into a full plant, genetically identical to the mother tuber. It’s a good way to scale up without buying in one tuber to one plant. We usually get anywhere between 3 and 15 cuttings off a tuber. I also find that rooted cuttings are very good producers of flowers in that same year - it’s how the exhibition and show dahlia folk do it. It works for us too, we know the cuttings are going to come true to the mother tuber, and once they put their roots down there’s no stopping them. We just have to make sure they don’t get beasted by frost as they are particularly vulnerable.
We’ve produced over 1,200 rooted cuttings this year and are taking these to RHS Hampton Court for our sales table. British grown. Solid.
3. A Dahlia Potted Tuber
In order to offer the full range of options, we pot tubers we get from Holland in March / April time. These go into 2L pots in bedding compost mixed with a bit of fertilising magic. We monitor these for any nasty diseases such as leafy and crown gall. When you buy a tuber from a supplier it can be a bit of a roll of the dice; some arrive broken, some don’t come up and rot in the pot, some may come up with gall (a bacteria disease which can pass to other plants in your garden). We quality control all the 2 litre potted tubers we produce here - anything that looks slightly dodgy, a bit sad or is growing the dreaded cauliflower like gall goes in the bin. We know we are growing and sending out top quality plants that will thrive in people’s gardens.
We have produced 1,000 2 litre potted tubers and will also be taking these to RHS Hampton Court.
Now Evanah looks like a ‘real’ plant – sturdy, leafy, full of promise.
4. Dahlia Evanah in Full Flower
Finally, the grand finale. We potted up 120 dahlias and brought them on in a very kind friend’s amazing walled garden hot houses in March in order to have show plants in flower ready for RHS Hampton Court. From now onwards (end of June / beginning of July), Evanah begins to bloom in whatever form - show plant, rooted cutting, 2 litre potted. Pale pink petals arranged with symmetry and grace – just stunning.
Whether it is a dahlia rooted cutting, a 2 litre potted dahlia tuber, or a dahlia tuber planted into the ground, all will catch up with each other and in a couple of weeks time (patience dear friends) it will be hard to tell which was a rooted cutting, which a forced show plant and which a potted tuber.
Why We Share the Journey
At The Tetbury Flower Company, dahlias are more than just flowers – they’re a process. A rhythm. A reason to get muddy in March and be out cutting at 5.30am on an August morning.
We’ll have Evanah at RHS Hampton Court next week – come and see it in all its glory! And if you’d like to grow your own next season, we’ll have plants ready to reserve this autumn.
Got a favourite dahlia? Let us know in the comments – we’re always chatting flowers here.
Hope your dahlias are blooming marvellous this year
Rachel
