Cuttings and leaf cuttings

My goal for this year’s dahlia garden is to produce enough blossoms that I can sell some of them as cut flowers. I will have at least 600 plants (up from 100 plants last year), and possibly as many as 800+ plants. It is too expensive to purchase multiple tubers of the same variety of dahlia. So what is a person to do?

Last year I discovered the world of cuttings and leaf cuttings. The photos at the beginning of this post are of tubers prepared for taking cuttings.

Here is a brief description of how it is done:

1. Place a tuber in potting soil with the “eye” out of the dirt.
2. Label each tuber with the name of the dahlia variety (such as “Sparticus”).
3. Place the tubers on a heating pad in a warm room.
4. Keep the soil moist enough to keep the tubers from drying out.
5. Some people put plastic covers over the tubers.
6. Wait. And wait. And wait.
7. The eyes will begin to grow a dahlia plant.

I will continue to write on this topic when my tubers are at the point of taking the cuttings. I will include of taking both types of cuttings.

Photos 1-3: Photos of dahlia tubers planted with eyes out of the soil.

Photos 4-7: Photos of “eyes” developing into plants.

Click on each photo to see the full sized picture.