Dahlia Tuber Failures and Finances

Dahlia Diaries

Growing up, dahlias were not on my list of flowers I wanted to grow.  I had seen dahlias in the garden centers, but they were like an electric yellow color, bright orange, purple, etc.  Most of these were bred for bedding plants.  Because of this, they had shorter stems that don't need staking.  The difference between bedding plants and cut flowers is generally the height.  Cut flowers are often going to need support for the longer stems or they will flop.  This is why I don't plant most cut flowers in my garden beds and have a separate area for them.

It wasn't until Elise's wedding that I really started to notice dahlias.  She had some incredible peachy tones in her September wedding.  Suddenly dahlias and lisianthus were on my list for my cut flower area.

But I didn't know where to purchase the colors I wanted to grow, or how to care for them.  

I bought some dahlia pots at Costco, but they struggled.  I'm not sure if they were infected, but eventually the earwigs got them.  (Before I learned about the essential organic Sluggo Plus granules that kill earwigs!)

Then in 2023 I found two taller staked dahlias in pots at Sun River Gardens.  I left them in pots by my pool all summer.  And before they froze, I pulled them out of their pots and put the clumps in a shoe box and left them in my coat closet.  Despite this being a pretty minimal way to save tubers, they survived just fine in the shoe box.  And I replanted last year and got so many great plants.  But this luck led me to underestimate the ease of this process of saving and dividing tubers.

I think this one is a Karma Prospero with a blown center.  I did not pay attention to the names then,  just bought ones that looked pretty.  These are so prolific and hardy and produce so flowers with really long stems and SO many practically indestructible tubers!

My first Cafe Au Lait I bought at Sun River

The second year (2024) I purchased more varieties at the Snuck Flower Sale in May.  They had a lot of the really standard popular varieties.  Cafe Au Lait, Caitlins Joy, Cornel Bronze, Jowey Chantel, Jowey Winnie, Chim Luke, Daisy Duke, Linda's Baby, Black Satin and Sweet Nathalie.   I had an insanely good harvest and I really loved all the varieties I had.  They were beautiful and perfect and I had no bug problems or mildew.  In October when it was time to dig them out, I was so busy with work!  I bought a hay pitchfork, which isn't the right kind, and I accidentally stabbed and broke off lots of the tubers in my haste.  I did not label anything and I left them on the pavement outside my garage in cardboard boxes.  They were shriveled up within a day I think.  Some were goners.  Some came back.  Still I didn't process them very thoughtfully at all, given it was so easy the previous year.  

The third year (in October 2025) I tried to do the same things as the previous year.  But I expanded my cut flower garden into some areas that had more shade.  I was testing things out.  We had a goat catastrophe when Simone's goats hopped the fence to my garden and massacred most of my young plants.  I organized them by color, and some areas the goats ate more than others.  So I ended up with lots of dark dahlias.  Dahlias from tubers are thankfully pretty resilient and the goats basically just pinched my plants for me and I got really bushy plants.  But the expensive and rare cuttings that don't have a tuber definitely took a big hit--so sad.  Then we got hit with some weird weather.  Super dry summer and lots of spider mites (thankfully not on the dahlias).  We also had powdery mildew really early in the season which was a bummer.  At least I've never had to deal with gall.  Which is a somewhat common tuber disease.

Because my cut flower area is surrounded by trees and a vinyl fence, there is a lot of shade here and my plants get extremely tall.  This year I'm hoping to create rows in a section of my lawn that we don't really use and is more sunny.  Dahlias are supposed to be 3-4.5 feet.  Mine were like 7'.  Crazy.  They have to be staked and tied off with garden twine.

Everything grows well in these boxes.  So much sun!  The lisianthus are so good.

Despite the setbacks with powdery mildew and goats, harvesting my dahlia tubers was really fun!  Because then you get to see how many new tubers you got.  

I bought a real pitchfork and that made it so much easier.  Then dug out the tubers that were all labeled with plant tags.  I stored them carefully and let them dry out in the garage for a couple days.  Then I marked each one with a permanent marker.  I cut them apart with carefully sanitized snips especially for that, and saran wrapped each individual tuber.

Tuber clump at the end of the season.  
Each tuber gets separated with some of the "neck" and "eyes" in order to grow again.
Each tuber will produce a new plant identical to the original.  
While a dahlia seed will not due to pollination.  Most people like dahlia tubers instead of seeds because they know what their blooms will look like.  Seeds are more of a guess.  But also fun.

Processing the tubers

tools.  Felcos for cutting the big chunky pieces, and sharp tipped scissors for the fine stuff.  
Sanitize between each clump.

I found these teflon coated scissors at the Hidatool website

So far so good!  Come fall, dahlia people are all very stressed about the best way to store tubers and there are a lot of ways to do it.  It's a bit mind boggling, so I just had to choose a method and I chose the saran wrap (press and seal)  method to store more efficiently.  I've only lost a couple this winter.  They are looking good and I'm very excited about it.  I spent several hundred dollars on tubers last year.  Eleven of the original ones I bought last year were either duds or died from goat damage.   Still even with the goat massacre,  I ended up with 200 tubers that will each make a new plant.  If I sold these tubers for $10, that is actually a super great deal for a buyer, less than I paid for any of them.  A few of them I just bought cuttings for last year which were $35 for one cutting (from a very reputable source).  From that KA Cinder Rose cutting I got over 13 tubers, which would be a $400 increase if I actually sold them for what I purchased them for.  I got 10 KA Keltie Rose from another $25 cutting.  Google Cinder Rose dahlia tubers, and you won't find any in stock anywhere.  And they are very $$$.  

Cuttings are also really a cool way to double your plants.  When growing dahlias you can pinch out the main leader in order to make them bushier and get more blooms.  Then you take that pinched growth and dip it in rooting hormone and put it in some trays with seed starting material and after a couple weeks you have a rooted cutting that can produce another whole new plant.  It's pretty great if you don't mind babysitting the cuttings for a bit and then hardening them off.  A lot of people put tubers in a ziplock with dirt about this time of year or a bit later and just sell the sprouts (cuttings) until it's warm enough to put the whole tuber in the ground around Mother's Day.

So Jared is watching me process all these tubers and is doing the math and suddenly he's like wait---this is a good investment!  He's on board to tear out the grass and put in more flowers in the northwest section of our backyard.

Anyway, there is a lot of work involved in growing flowers, but it's a lot of fun. I've purchased a few more rare varieties this winter and am looking forward to growing: Fawn, Hollyhill Serenity, Chateau de la Bourdaisiere, Rosemary Webb, Sandia Susan, and Sweet Sanne, and Monet Glory (for Monet of course).  Really hoping to one day get a Carolina Wagemans.  But it's really cutthroat out there in the dahlia world.  I might have to employ a bot to land one of those.  Haha.

I was boarding a flight to California last week and Micro Flower Farm sale started right as my plane was taking off!  I was so bummed with the unfortunate timing cause it's been on the calendar for months.  Jared was helping me and he's great at that kind of thing.  So I told him to go straight for Carolina Wagemans and checkout immediately, but she was already gone in seconds.  Darn.  Maybe I can get a cutting from my friend!

Also I saw that he ordered some different ones but couldn't see the varieties.  I told Josie as our flight took off, it will be some really crazy looking ones.  He likes things that are unique.  Yep.  I know my husband.  

Facebook marketplace is actually a great way to sell/trade dahlias and not spend a lot.  I have a friend who has MS and gardening has become therapy for her.  She sells her tubers locally and they are such a great price.  I hope this can be a good way for her to stay active and help her family long term.  

Tubers from big box stores or Costco are not usually recommended.  Dahlias especially can carry diseases and then when you put those infected tubers in your soil, they can spread to all your other dahlias.  If you've struggled to grow dahlias from Costco, so have I!  It made me think they are really hard.  They are not.

So buy from local growers or good online sources.  River Merle Farm, Mack's Creek and Stonehouse Dahlias is where I bought mine from last year and they were well packaged and grew so well.  The ones from Shoving Leopard had a 50% loss rate and terrible packaging.  Lesson learned.  The ones from Snuck were all amazing as well.  

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with all these tubers or dahlias.  But I'll start by sharing them with my friends and family!

We supplied free flowers for lots of friends weddings, wedding luncheons, baby showers, wedding showers etc.   

I have a note on my phone to keep track of my dahlia inventory.  These are the older ones from last year.  They did not all thrive. But most did. 

Excited for the new ones!

New inventory of "waterlily" dahlias.  I'm excited to try these.

Fawn

Sandia Susan

Chateau de la Bourdaisiere

Monet Glory

Hollyhill Serenity

Rosemary Webb

Ladies in Landscaping

Today I attended a "Ladies in Landscaping" event at BYU.  There was a catered dinner last night and today speakers, a flower bar, and a really delicious breakfast.  It's fun to be surrounded by all these young people that love being outside and working in the dirt as much as I do!  Everything was so beautiful.  Someone made giant flowers out of crepe paper.  I should have taken a photo.

A few things I've noticed at BYU:

Everyone is so nice and always interested in each other.  Is that a plant person thing?  I'm not sure.  It could just be a BYU thing.  A lot of these kids have served missions and are adept at socializing with the people around them.  

I've also noticed another type of plant people.  I am in a couple of forums online for dahlia and DIY landscaping garden groups.  I was amused by some of it.  Online, some of these older plant people are real know-it-alls.  It's a snobby kind of interaction.  Which is a really funny thing to be snobby about, right? They are torching people for having hydrangeas too close to the house (which is not really that big of a deal), or for not hosing the dirt off the siding when they took a photo.  Others are shaming those who have lawns.  There are some very hot topics.  You think politics is bad, but these garden people are ruthless.

Some strong opinions on things that surprised me.  It's almost like prescription drugs vs supplements.  Traditional medicine vs holistic.  It's very interesting!  

I've learned that the plant world scientists, nurserymen, etc have a certain way of doing things.  My USU Master Gardening class was geared toward using more chemical fertilizers (in the correct amounts after soil testing) and not using organics as much.  USU is an agricultural school, lots of big commercial growers.  And then there is the alternative group that is all about mycorrhizal fungi, worm castings, kelp, bone meal and bees.  At Sun River, we used more of these kinds of things.

Some people have real strong feelings about lawns, herbicides, native plants, and watering.  There is some validity there, but I still think it's okay for people to have a lawn and use some help in fertilizers.  

I hand pulled all my weeds last year.  But this year I plan to have a little help for that first round of grasses that have been growing all of this warm winter in my beds in my front yard where cardboard is not something I want my neighbors to have to look at.  I have an area right next to a weed filled retention basin and I want those grasses to be dead-dead.  And then I will mulch good and prevent them from taking root again.  I don't want to be dealing with them all summer.  And my lawn had lots of grub damage.  

Anyway, I'll continue to try to learn as much as I can about organics, solarization, etc.  I definitely think round up is super bad for people and will look for alternatives.  But some things just never go away without some chemicals (like bindweed.) This year I'll try the Brix method on my flowers.  I love learning best practices.

A few of the instagram "Ladies in Landscaping" I've learned a lot from:

Erin Bezakein from Floret.  Probably the most well-known flower expert on the planet!  She has a huge cult following.  But she's just so humble and down to Earth.  She's got the most beautiful photos, and a huge farm with a big staff.  I loved hearing her story of how she began.  I listened to her on a podcast awhile back and it's always so intriguing how some people just thrive on creating profitable systems.  She's smart and strategic.  She's always promoting the artisans and smaller growers too which I think is so nice.  And she just is very knowledgeable.

Galena of Micro Flower Farm creates really helpful videos.  She started her farm on 1/4 acre and recently bought a larger property.  I love her info and like that she's using organic methods.  She is such a hard worker.  There is nothing easy about farming.  I don't know how she has the energy.  I feel bad for her when I see her to do list.  Ha.

Pollyana Wilkinson is so fun.  She's a garden designer in the UK.  She has won lots of awards.  You can see her design work at Studiopollyanadesign.   I love her eye for design and I like her enthusiasm.  She's so fun to listen to with her cute accent.  I like her lists for each month in the garden, though it doesn't always line up for our zone.  She charges a lot for her guides, but sometimes I'm tempted to see if there is any new information in them.  

Youcandoitgardening is another account I love.  I love her because she's passionate about principles, but encouraging.  She's helping people learn how to care for their yard that doesn't feel intimidating and overwhelming.  She's the opposite of the know it all kinds.  She's very passionate about invasive, chemicals, water, etc but does it in a nice way.  It's good to note that in Utah, we don't have the same invasive plants.  Burning bush is good here.  I love her videos where she plants her tulips and just sticks the shovel in, lifts the dirt up and pours a bag of tulips in the hole.  Seriously great.  It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.  And there are best practices, and there are "let's get this done" practices and there is a time and a place for both.  She never promotes anything really.  She's super thrifty and practical.

Anya the Garden Fairy is this Polish lady that has so many great tips on how to create more plants for free.    I bought her book recently on plant propagation.  It's really cool.  I like how she uses the branches and things in her yard as plant supports.

29 years

It was our anniversary this week!  I was sick on our anniversary so we celebrated a couple days later.  Simone was over this week and when we told her it was our anniversary, she looked at me and just started laughing.  Because it hit her that I was her age when I met Jared.  It was right after my 19th birthday.  My kids love to rib us about this.  She is just thinking that sounds really crazy.  We both laughed together.  I definitely see the humor too.  It IS crazy to think that she's the age now that I was then--please don't get married this year Simone haha.  I know Simone is going to be a fabulous mom someday, but I don't think that day is coming anytime soon.  

I'm glad young people these days don't seem to be getting married as young.  A lot of my friends married young.  I went to my friend's wedding a few weeks before I met Jared.  And it blew my mind.  I could not conceive of why anyone our age would want to be married, just a year out of high school.    

Getting married a year and a half after high school was never my plan.  It did not sound "cool" to me.  The joke was on me though, because just about three weeks after my friend's wedding I started dating Jared, and it just took about 6 weeks for my brain to start thinking about the future with him.

A little timeline:

June 22, 1996  

I'd already met Jared at this point, but we were both with other people.  I think this was right after I broke up with someone.  

(The kissing part is funny cause I hardly kissed anyone anyways.  Like why did I think this needed to be a goal?  All caps.  haha.  Well I made it like three weeks.)

Context:

Just 3 days before I left for Newport.  July 4th I was all alone!  
Everyone was gone for the holiday and I was just home by myself with my sleeping grandma.
 Super lonely.  
Next day we left to California, and that's when everything changed.  
Funny how life can swing like that.  You never know what's around the corner.

August 8, 1996

 Yesterday I went looking for my dad's old Valentine's letters.  I always hang them up this time of year as decorations.  I saw my old journals.  Decided to look inside.  Felt embarrassed.  Wow I was immature.  I wrote a lot to process my feelings.  So a lot of what I wrote is PMS induced drama.  If only I'd known back then why I had such big feelings a couple days of every month.  Haha.  In my defense, I really was dealing with a lot of hard things.  I'll resist the urge to throw out those journals,  If only because they might remind someone else someday of the underdeveloped pre-frontal cortex and hormonal imbalance of teenagers.  Preserved forever in my journals.  

Anyway, then I found the notes I wrote when I met Jared.  I was in California, and had left my journal at home.  So I went to the store and got a notebook and took it to Miles Square Park and wrote about him.  I wanted to capture it.  

He was calm and steady during a really hard time for me.  He was consistent, devoted, affectionate, and the perfect match for me.  We were immature still.  We were naive in many ways.  But we were also committed.  And I don't mind at all that we got to "grow up" together.  It was way better to be with him than the chaos and sadness that was happening at home.

I'm so glad that I met Jared when I did.  There were a lot of things I wanted to do with my life.  I wanted to travel, and I wanted to have adventures.  I told myself that.  But if I'm being honest, more than anything, I just wanted to be in a happy relationship with someone I loved.  And you know, adventure doesn't end at marriage thankfully.  I've had more than enough opportunities to travel and to pursue different career paths.  

I've never once seen a guy and thought, "I wish I wasn't married"  I'm just not made that way.  There is no part of me that felt like I was cheated out of an important part of life.  I'm not saying at all that this is right for anyone else.  But for me it was.  I was the kid that would rather babysit than go out.  I had books on gardening, and decorating and child development.  It doesn't sound cool to love those things at that age.  But that was me.  

When I was little, there was a song that I loved.  I loved a lot of songs, but this one in particular:  "When I grow up, I want to be a mother, and have a family, one little, two little, three little babies of my own."   And honestly I don't think there is anything better in life than being a mom.  (I used to babysit for the grandchildren of the woman who wrote this song.)  I had a totally open day yesterday and I took Soleil to Sun River Gardens and we watched Nemo.  I love that little cutie and for me it really doesn't get much better than hanging out with a 2 year old.

The ONLY reason why I talk about how its good to get married later, is for others' sake.   Because I know it's a best odds approach.  I know that there were a few times I dated someone and could "see myself" with that person forever, and it makes me shudder because I was so, so wrong and was trying to make something out of a relationship that was so not right.  But in my inexperience, I didn't understand that yet.  And I fear that a kid might be wrapped up in that same inexperience and make a decision that isn't a good one.

I know that part of our story is a measure of good luck.  So many of my good friends have had some really, really hard things.  And I realize that people can change and you can't predict how someone will behave years down the road.  So yes, luck is part of it.

But also I valued the right things in a spouse.  I married him because he was a peacemaker.  Because he's tender hearted.  He's sweet and loving with the people in his life.  He's always supported my goals.   I love being with him and we laugh a lot.  He's positive and happy.  He cares about being a good dad and papa and taking care of the people he loves.

A little photo from our New Years Date:

He's shaved his beard now.  I like the beard, but I like his face and want to see more of it.

Cute Valentine's Dinner at home with Soleil 

The Weiners forever

300 days of Portuguese on Duolingo.  I thought it was sweet that he did this as a way to connect with Miles while he was serving in Brazil.

2025 Valentine's selfie

2024 Valentine's with Soleil watching him with our kids, and then our grand baby makes me very happy.  She's obsessed with him.   

Miles is 21!

Miles is 21!

My sweet little boy isn't so little these days!  He's significantly bigger than Jared, which is really a head scratcher to all of us.  When Jared married me, he thought we were going to have some little point guards.  But Miles is like 6'5" and has a big frame.

When Miles was a little boy he was so sweet.  He was always holding Simone's hand:  at the gym, the playground, the park.  He loved to taking care of her.  Although they definitely had a lot more disagreements with being only two years apart.  They for the most part enjoyed being together.  

It's been fun to see that reconnection post-mission.  Miles is a very hard worker and always thinking of business ideas.  Back in November he did a sales trip selling fiber internet in Ohio.  Somehow Jared knew a guy and he got connected with some other people in the industry and they started their own company at Miles's so they could have some customized blitz locations and could have more control over the process.  Jared loves to develop business ideas with his kids and this is actually such a good fit for both of their skillsets.  In December they were getting some specifics figured out, and by January Miles, Jared, Carson, Simone and a bunch of friends were driving to Nebraska to test things out on a sales blitz.

It ended up being a really great trip.  Simone loved the farm airbnb and seeing the animals each morning. They all did well and had a lot of fun seeing a whole different part of the country. Miles's friends detoured to Mt. Rushmore on the way home.  Carson had a ton of sales, and since he's just starting up his new insurance agency, it's good to have some quick cash while he builds his pipeline.  Simone is focused on climbing and always excited to try something new that will help support her with that.

Anyway, hearing Simone say how much fun she had with Miles and his friends really made me happy.  He also said separately that his friends thought she was really cool.  My mama heart has been waiting a long time for this.  They were super fun in Italy, but Simone said this was different.  It wasn't just getting along and not fighting, they had a really good time together.  

She said Miles was revealing some of the trouble he caused in Jr. High.  Funny stories that we never knew about.  When I say I needed eyes in the back of my head to keep up with this kid, I meant it.  But he really does have some funny stories.  In this one, he was sent to the principals office.  But the principal left to do something else and Miles was just bored in the office for like 45 minutes.  He saw some sticky notes with usernames and passwords and realized they were for the music that plays over the speakers between classes and at lunch.  So Miles figured out how to login and would take requests from other kids.

Since he's been home, Miles has had some fun.  He went to Hawaii with his buddies in December.  They have a great group of boys and I'm grateful for the good influence his friends have been through the years.  Fun time reconnecting after their "World Tour" as they call their missions.  I didn't get any photos from this trip unfortunately. 

When we went to Italy, he wanted to watch "The Chosen" the whole plane ride, and that is really sweet to me.  I love how he loves information and is always in pursuit of learning.  He created an app for sales training in October.  And I love seeing how he thinks outside the box.  He likes to improve systems and think of new ways to do things.  When he has an idea, he takes immediate action.  

We were talking the other day about how fun it is that we all have such different ways of thinking.  In a family, that is helpful!  We have kids who are really different from each other.  But as a whole, we've got a really wide range of skillsets.     

We celebrated his birthday dinner at Tsunami and it was a lot of fun.  He and Josie shared their story of how they met in May of their Junior year at Hobby Lobby.  Miles and his friend Cam were buying rockets and Josie was their cashier.  They found out she went to Skyridge.  Later Miles wanted to find out more about her and did some sleuthing to find her instagram and followed her.  It took him like 6 months to ask her out.  We were all wondering what she thought of his social media haha.  She asked one of his basketball friends what he thought of Miles before she said she'd go out with him.  He tipped her off to the TikTok account luckily she wasn't too scared off by his early misadventures. But she still had to convince her mom, who didn't know Miles at all.  Luckily her mom let her go.  They had a ton of fun and I think it's safe to say that Miles has been smitten ever since!  Josie is so sweet and fun and we were happy to hear all about their early days.  

It's been over three years now since they first started dating, though for two years they were apart due to missions.  Three years ago for Miles's birthday they went to a Jazz game.  They lingered after the game and were waiting for the arena to clear out and some famous rappers started shooting around.  Miles's friend Creighton kept telling them, "hey it's my friend's birthday" and finally Travis Scott grabbed Creighton's phone and gave Miles a profanity laced birthday greeting.  So epic for Miles who was actually a big fan back then.  I'm not a fan of him as I dislike most celebrities so that's nothing new.  But thought it was funny and so fortunate that Miles got a birthday shoutout from him.