Mossy Cottage Knits

Oh, Ryan's Inner Knitter! You make me smile!

I'd like to see you try. :-)

I know not the ways of dahlias so does this mean that instead of one plant, now you have a lot of plants for next spring? That would be way cool!

Snort. I'd rather weave ends than play in dirt, any day. Which is why my yard looks like it does... all dirt.

So, you have to dig up Dahlias every fall and store them? I never knew that...

Robbyn: Yep, it do mean I'll have more dahlias from this one plant next spring, but not as many as the picture would lead you to believe, not one for each tuber. What matters are the number of eyes near the stem area. One eye, one new dahlia. I'll probably get six or seven new dahlias out of this one--especially after I go through the somewhat massacre-ish process of cutting this clump apart. It's never pretty.

Lisa: Yes and no. Where there are hard winters, you do need to dig dahlias up since they'll either freeze or rot. Here in the Northwest you can theoretically leave them in the ground, but I try to dig them up anyway. I don't always succeed since it's A Process (the digging is just step one) but I so enjoy giving the extra tubers away that I'm motivated.

I didn't know to dig them up! But I'm glad that I see your note about PNW gardeners can leave them in the ground because frankly, I don't remember quite where I put them...

I'm not sure if I could do this much hands on gardening. I'm trying, but I always forget that I had stuff in the ground and then I don't water them enough. That's a lot of sad looking plants at the end of the growing season if they make it that long!

Heeeeee! Love it!

I should be doing this to my canas, but they are so vigorous (one might even say virulent) that I count on the occasional deep freeze to thin them out for me. Oklahoma is just at the edge of where they can survive over the winter and more years than not it works out fine. I've left dahlias in the ground too, although to somewhat poorer results. Yours look great - so plump, so clean!