Gilbert's Dahlia Propagation from Tubers vs. Cuttings (1925)
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Time to read 8 min
This article is adapted from a dahlia catalog published in 1925 by The Dahlia Farm (Henry G. Gilbert Nursery) of East Moriches, Long Island, New York.
Although the original work is in the public domain, this article has been edited for the modern reader and may contain new material.
This version is Copyright © 2024 by Steve K. Lloyd and may not be reproduced without permission.
Editor’s note: This article discusses gardening techniques which were commonly recommended at the time of original publication. Please note that some of these may no longer be considered best practices for dahlia growers. While this article contains some excellent information, please remember that it was written nearly a century ago.
Consult modern guides before relying on the techniques discussed here.
Practicalities of Propagating Dahlias from Tubers & Cuttings
As to the point at which propagation by cuttings becomes an evil—a point always debatable—I will admit my inability to judge, and I prefer to leave the arguments to those interested.
In England, where all orders are filled with green plants, no tubers being used except the pot roots for exploitation, the demand for any variety has never reached the point at which evil may come, because each grower benches all clumps to help produce the needed green plants—a few husky cuttings made from each—and any sign of spindling of the shoots on any clump means that clump being tossed into the discard.
In our country the slow sure method of the Englishman goes by the board. A one-year seedling attracts attention, the originator rushes it early to the bench, and works it till the last sickly white spear that pushes its two inch length is stuck in the sand. Was there an evil point? There was, but where? Search me.
This man-made method of propagation has been of great service in filling the gap made by the vast waste of the modern mode of living. But as it is so alien to nature’s own methods of propagation, and so much more exacting on the mother plant, it is essential that more care be used by the operator, as well as by the buyer of the plants.
Nature’s increase is normally by seed pod or tuber, and this super-normal increase by cuttings may give better results than nature’s own method, as claimed by the advocates of green plants, but I have never found it so. I would no more believe the statement, contrary to my own experience, than if some biologist informed me that he had discovered a method of propagating life, of a far higher order, at twenty times the normal rate.
Everything has a limit, and when one goes beyond that limit, trouble begins. If man, animal, or flower is weakened through overwork, or want of care, each becomes easy prey to any trouble that is waiting for a nesting place.
I do not believe that propagation by cuttings causes disease, except in that it may give a number of weak plants that become easy prey to disease.
I also am sure that a certain amount of propagation by cuttings from the healthiest clumps will give better plants than can be gotten from the tubers of the poorer clumps.
But the trouble with the argument for plants is that it is based, not so much on an altruistic foundation as on a financial one. It is not so much that the grower is working for healthier, stronger plants, as that he is working for easier and quicker profit.
If every grower was imbued with the desire for bettering dahlias, there would be little fear of green plants becoming a menace to the future of the greatest flower in the world.
If, instead of indiscriminate selection, each grower would propagate only those clumps starting quickly into life, and await the normal sprouting, instead of forcing the spears with a high bottom heat, there would be less kick about plants.
On a test of two clumps of Mrs. Warnaar, one benched at the back of a glass house with no heat, the other in the front bench over a bottom heat of 70 degrees, I found what made the difference between good plants and absolute failure.
The heated clump made 60 cuttings against 11 for the unheated. The 60 gave fair flowers, and stringy roots, useless for trade. The 11 gave thirty-one saleable tubers and perfect flowers all season.
Every argument is governed by self interest, and experience alone gives wisdom.
Because of the seeming cheapness of plants, I bought several hundreds each season for years, but during 1924 I bought less than 200, many of these being plants of varieties that I could not get tubers of.
“Dahliagrams”: Thoughts on Growing Dahlias (1925)
Do not be discouraged if your dahlias do less than you expected the first season. Many of the finer varieties need acclimating, and are much below their best the first year because of changed conditions, but their second year showing will surprise you. A second trial has often proved my first year judgment wrong.
Varieties differ. Every season will not be ideal for every dahlia, but every year will find some varieties at their best.
Size is only of value when allied to all other good points. A high price and printer's ink is not a guarantee of long life. Mary dahlias, introduced with both, died in childhood.
A five-inch flower with stem and substance is worth one hundred mere exhibition varieties.
More blooms of dahlias were used last year than those of any other flower.
No plant equals the Dahlia for the length of the blooming season. No plant produces as many blooms.
No plant numbers so many different forms.
No plant gives such a great variety of color.
No plant is so well adapted for decoration, indoors or out. The growing of exhibition blooms and satisfactory tubers cannot be accomplished in the same hill. If you want 2-inch flowers go after them with nitrate of soda and water, but do not sell, neither pin your faith for another year on the tubers produced. As a man may dig his grave with his teeth, so may a good tuber stunt and die from overfeeding.
To assure blooms for a show, when disbudding allow 12 days from first break in bud to perfect flower.
Make not too rash promises for your seedlings, but let time be your judge. Many a man cuts his throat with his tongue.
An amateur is not one who acquires his stock by trade, carries a shoe box of flowers each morning to a retail florist for a cash consideration, and sends some cut price list of the varieties he grows to the larger growers. Neither is one compelled to do any or all these things before entering as a bona-fide amateur. Thrift is a good characteristic, and to be commended, but whoever does these things is a semi-professional, and his class is the Open To All.
Commercial flowers keep longer, and give better results if not forced. The potash content of a good fertilizer guarantees good keeping tubers.
Green plants are not better than tubers. Neither are they as good. The ratio rightly is 3 to 1, and I would sooner have one good tuber than four green plants.
Green plants do not give better flowers than tubers. Some grower said it, and without thought it was made into a stock phrase.
Because of slower growth, that matured flowers about the time of the shows, causing growers to give more care and feed to the coming blooms, the statement was easy to believe.
After four years of tests, we have found no difference in the size of flowers. Tubers yield more flowers. The flowers from tubers have more substance and last longer.
Because of little handling our own green plants mature 80 to 90 per cent, when planted where we can give them the best of care. An average for four years of bought plants shows less than 50 per cent, mature, and less than 8 per cent, yield what we call marketable tubers.
There is much variation in the time that professional dahlia growers set as the best time for planting. It varies from early April to late July. We are compelled to keep planting from the earliest to the latest date, and base our recommendations on a long and broad experience.
For the best crop of tubers, as soon as the ground is warm, May 10th to 15th. For best exhibition flowers July 1st. For most commercial flowers June 1st to July 15th, saving those varieties of least value for latest planting, as the tuber increase will be small.
This is the method followed by other Long Island growers who ship hundreds of dozens of cut dahlias to the market each day. But after all, the weather is King.
Last year we planted 5,000 Mrs. T. B. Ackerson on August 8th. The flowers paid good interest on the investment, though we sacrificed the tubers by leaving them in the ground. This season our late plantings made better tubers than those planted May 1st.
One thousand George Walters, planted on April 29th, lost so much “pep” struggling against the hot, dry spell, that they were beaten in bloom by others planted June 30th, and the tubers were smaller. Both plantings in very sandy soil.
The same thing happened to KALIF and F. W. FELLOWS. Greenplants set out May 20th matured less than 20 per cent, burned up. 1,200 set out July 15th matured over 90 per cent. Tubers that were about equal in size at digging time.
The weather was responsible.
After all, the weather is King. But the grower with a small garden or a few hundred hills of dahlias can depose the King, and reign in his stead. Can water, feed and care for each hill, stake and shade them, and give the dahlia nearly all the very best season affords.
If you choose dahlias in the showroom, you are sure of the color. If you choose dahlias from the field, you are sure of everything but judgment, but you get what you know you want. And if a variety appeals to you, if you love it for a grace and beauty your eye discerns, you have chosen wisely.
Taste is an individual characteristic. The giant decorative may be anathema to the lover of the graceful single or collarette. The dainty pompon will appeal to many for whom the large flower has no attraction.
Because we find a variety that we bought from catalog description does not fit our mental vision, nor suit our taste, is no reason for reviling the originator. It is only sure that his likes and ours fail to agree. No grower wastes his garden and catalog space on a variety that does not please him. It costs as much to raise and sell a poor flower as a good one.
A good stem is the most requisite part of a dahlia. Every shade and tint will find admirers, but every admirer of any color must have the flowers on a stem that carries it where the eye may see its beauties.
The demand for size has done more harm to the dahlia than all other pests combined. Forcing for the showroom, weakens the tubers.
