What to expect - dahlia cuttings!

Dahlia cuttings are such a fantastic way to curate your collection, particularly for those hard to get varieties. Often those special dahlias give very few tubers in their first year, so propagating them via cuttings is the only way to share them more widely. 

I've taken cuttings for years for myself, and in the last two years have gifted many to friends, but this year is my first sending them out via my website. I don't use fancy packaging, they'll simply arrive in a recycled box with recycled cardboard rolled around them to protect them in transit or in a cardboard grid to keep them upright and seperated.

This year I trialed my cuttings in various stages of growth as if they were shipping out. I left them in my packaging for two to three days in my cool garage and occasionally shook them around as they would likely be treated in transit. Over the years I've noticed two critical conditions cuttings arrive in (both from me sending them and from me receiving them)

Most important step - Once you receive your cuttings, open the box, check moisture levels and leave as is! Remove any tape or packaging but leave them in the open box in a cool room with filtered light, NO BRIGHT or DIRECT light! They're already in a bit of shock due to transit and giving them light or warmth immediately can worsen that. Leave them somewhere cool for at least 2 days before assessing them. Your cuttings move to my cool garage with filtered lights, receiving them in similar conditions will ensure their survival.  Keep them out of your grow room or warmest spaces for two days before transferring them somewhere warmer and slowly acclimating them to bright light.

1. Moisture loss - If your cuttings seem a touch dry and begin to wilt once out of their box. They need moisture asap. Lightly water them, cut down or remove any large leave or stems ( this means less plant matter for the cutting to have to recover) and put them under a dome (or ziploc baggie on top of the pot) to re hydrate them. After two days in filtered light, slowly move them somewhere warmer with more light. They should begin to perk up, at that time you can slowly remove your dome and they should regulate themselves. Feel free to pot them into fresh soil or a larger pot at this time if required. but don't loosen the roots just yet.

2. Moisture stress - If your cuttings begin to wilt but your soil is damp, they're likely suffering moisture stress. This is often due to fluctuating temps in transit and the humidity within the box. In this case follow the above steps but  DO NOT use a dome. Instead repot them into dry soil and mist once they begin to recover. Often you'll loose stems/leave turning black or simply rotting away, it's actually best to remove these or larger leaves as well so the plant has less to recover. You'll begin to see new growth in the lateral leaf growth

   and once that happens, you can begin to water lightly again. Be sure to give lots of airflow, a fan on low helps to circulate air. 

I experimented with a tray of my own cuttings putting them through both scenarios. Those with humidity stress were put in my cool garage with filtered light and plenty of airflow, they recovered quite quickly and as you can see in photos, despite losing a lot of stems, are showing plenty of new growth, 100% of these recovered. Those that were too dry, took longer to recover under domes, a few didn't survive but most did. 

Cuttings are a great way to get your hands on your fav varieties, but beware they can be very finicky and growers can't be held responsible for them once they've left our hands. So many factors can cause loss and although we do our best to share as much information as we can, a lot of cutting care is trial and error. Even I lose cuttings occasionally that are newly shipped to me but that's a risk I take. I encourage you to experiment with your own cuttings to see what works best in your environment. Each space's moisture levels vary widely and can affect how your plants grow as well. 

Here are a few photos of my cuttings experiments. These three exhibited humidity stress and as you can see despite losing many leaves, they're all showing new growth and recovering beautifully.

As they grow, remove a few sets of bottom leaves and plant deeper, this will create more tuber growth at those leaf nodes for you. About a week before plant out, start hardening them off by slowly giving them an hour or two outdoors and increasing it each day. Once acclimated and no risk of frost, you can plant your cuttings outside. Again, plant nice and deep for additional tuber growth and water often as cuttings will only have tiny tubers forming at this time, they'll still rely on their roots to uptake water and nutrients vs. a tuber which stores it's energy and doesn't require water until green growth appears and roots form. 

I'll be back in a weeks time to share tuber planting tips and again in June to share how I plant my cuttings. Here in Saskatchewan we've had a wild spring and are currently experiencing yet another snowfall after rain, high winds and freezing temps. I'm keeping my eye on the weather and will ship my final cuttings orders once it's safe to do so. I'm hoping that will be this coming mid week (May 20th) but we may have to wait once more week as mother nature has kept us on our toes in the prairies.

-Natasha