Kitchen Garden Forum

Dahlia tubers are in the shops again. I buy one of each of the varieties I fancy, pot them up, keep them warm, and then take cuttings as they appear, before letting the parent plant go into growth.
I also found a box of 20 begonia corms for £2.99 at a garden centre and have potted those up.I worked that out at 15p each which looked very good value to me.
This could be your very very last chance for hardwood cuttings before spring finally comes. I have gooseberry cuttings and cuttings from all the shrubs in my mother's garden.They cost nothing. You just have to be patient.

The shops are full of flower bulbs/tubers.etc.

The best buy I found recently was B&Q. Their plug plants of fuchsias, petunias (million bells and surfinia) verbena, etc were 75p each 10 for £5.00. They were very good strong plants, with plenty of cutting material on them.

valmarg

jane,
how many cuttings can you expect to get from each tuber and still leave enough on for the tuber to grow? I've done a few today but there will obviously be more to come.

If they're big tubers, lots! I had a tray full from a single tuber last year.

You don't want to exhaust the tuber, but you can get quite a few. They are very slightly later than the main tuber to flower, but then at the end of the year, if you've fed them and they've grown strongly they will have developped their own tubers. I usually leave my tubers in and cover them. I get some losses and this winter I expect more losses. The tubers get old anyway and this gives fresh growth and new plants.

Valmarg. I got those plants from B&Q and they're growing strong. 2 hanging baskets for a fiver isn't bad at all.

Sorry to be thick - but when the tubers start to shoot you just cut them off, dip em in hormone powder and strike them like any other cutting? and you can do that from the little plug thingys they sell in B&Q too?

This is great stuff.

David

Yes and no!

With the dahlias - spread them out in a seed tray on some compost and they'll sprout green shoots. You then cut these with a sharp knife and strike them. You'll get a new plant from each. A big, healthy tuber will throw up lots of shoots and then you plant the tuber as well. If you're not fussy about which specimen of dahlia you want to grow - Poundland and the other 99p/bargain shops are selling them at the moment. Just check that the tubers aren't soft.

The plugs will make strong plants if you pinch them out at the beginning, as you would most annuals. You may find there are many more plants in each tray than it says, so it's worth separating out the seedlings.

Sorry, Tigger what I meant by plug plants are the little individually planted cuttings of fuchsias, million bells/surfinia petunias, verbena, etc. They are in roughly +/- 2" pots. You can get a lot of cuttings off the plants, and I am nearly ready to take cuttings off my rooted cuttings.

I do buy the 'plug' plants of busy lizzies.

Either way, we are into the first day of British Summertime, and the only was is up. We are out of the doom and gloom of winter, longer days than nights.

My dad used to grow dahlias from cuttings from old tubers, but correct me if I'm wrong, once the stems of the new shoots have become hollow, they will not root.

Best wishes,

valmarg

Yes - you take the cuttings when they're big enough to handle and 99% of them will root. Then you plant the tuber as well. Providing you feed the plants grown from cuttings, they'll form tubers for next year, so they're very good value for money.