Digging and dividing 2025

Juliarugula · 2025-10-17T00:19:18+00:00

The good news is, dividing is moving along pretty quickly this year. The bad news, of course, is that tuber production was a bit less than usual. The weath...

MissyWeitzel

I have been digging and dividing for 2 weeks now and tuber production is definitely down for me too. I attribute it to the unreasonably hot late spring and early summer.

I planted about 60 tubers of all different varieties on July 29th this year. The plants are only now just blooming but they have been happier and healthier than anything else the entire time they have been growing. I'm saving those to dig last, but I am super curious to see what I get for tuber production from them.

Juliarugula

MissyWeitzel let us know - I’m curious! Spring was so rough this year. I’m really thinking it has something to do with it.

Teddahlia Pileated Woodpeckers are one of my favorite birds! They’re so cool.

Teddahlia

Wood peckers like metal fence gates and use them to call for a mate by hammering very loudly. One have them must have been desperate as he went on for a very long time.

Teddahlia

Picture posted to Facebook. Here is picture not posted to Facebook of it and it's sport.

Juliarugula

Teddahlia speaking of sports, I’ve been meaning to ask. Is Hollyhill Yellow Black Beauty ( or is it Hollyhill Yellow Beauty?) a sport or a seedling of Hollyhill Black Beauty? If a sport, do you find it to be pretty stable? I’ve really loved it this year. Such a rich golden yellow!

Teddahlia

"Is ~~Hollyhill Yellow Black Beauty~~ ( or is it Hollyhill Yellow Beauty?) a sport or a seedling of Hollyhill Black Beauty?
Hollyhill Yellow Beauty is a seedling of Black Beauty.

Teddahlia

First year seedling garden, harvested, cover crop(Rye) planted, and rough tilled. Second year seedlings next.

Teddahlia

Margaret and Ted dig. Ted washes and divides. Washing and dividing takes much more time than digging. The washing outside is invigorating and requires dressing for the part and when finished you wash yourself like you were a giant sized tuber clump. Dividing is done inside with a space heater at your feet and a television to distract you.

SteveM

That's a striking variegation! Do you notice any combination of variegated colors are more stable than others?

Teddahlia

We got our variegation genes from the old flower called Rolf. It is still one of the best variegated flowers and was bred by a man from Denmark in the late 90s. His name was Gregersdal. About 5 years ago I heard he was still alive but elderly, and I asked that they tell him how much I loved Rolf. By the way, he used the bicolor Duet for some of his breeding.
Variegated flowers are by nature unstable. Transposons are unstable. Having said that most of ours have been stable. HH Color Magic is unstable and we no longer grow it. HH Exotica is a bit unstable too.

calico20hill

We need to get serious about this winter prep thing in the dahlia patch. Hubby is going in for some fairly minor surgery next week, that will make digging difficult and inadvisable for him for a few weeks. I have the garden maybe 2/3 labeled and cut down...will continue that while he gets to the digging and washing. We are starting out with sunshine this morning but I don't think it is to last long....

This year I grew mostly seedlings due to a shortage of new tubers, due to ...buying on line isn't fun anymore. I had a lot of fun with the seedlings and found so many I want to save.

For the moment the sky is blue with big fluffy clouds and it is 51 degrees but the garden is still in shade. Time to get go to work...![
](https://). These are3 some of the seedlings form HH Black Beauty area in the garden last year.

Juliarugula

calico20hill I love the color of the peachy one!

calico20hill This year I grew mostly seedlings due to a shortage of new tubers, due to ...buying on line isn't fun anymore.

It’s rough out there. BTW, my single Allen’s Cascadia tuber did much better this year. I know it ws a few years ago that you were looking for it but if you’d still like to try it I can send you one! (Now or in the spring). You can message me.

MissyWeitzel

We have been getting a lot of rain and there are more rainy days than not in the 14 day forecast. I have very sandy soil so I'm used to being able to dig easily. I use the pitchfork once or twice to loosen underneath each clump, brush away a little of the soil on top then yank without worrying too much about breaking necks. The wet soil changes everything. I break tubers, curse more, and feel grumpier. On sunny days I divide in the driveway and let the freshly washed and divided tubers sit cut side up on a towel in the sun for 20-30 minutes before being put in cardboard box lids in the shade of the garage. I dig and divide until mid afternoon, then after dinner everything is dried enough to label and store. On rainy and cloudy days it messes with my schedule and the tubers usually need to sit out overnight before I can label and store.

MissyWeitzel

1 clump on left: Clearview Peachy tuber planted 7/29 - had small sprout but wasn't potted up or anything

3 clumps on right: Clearview Peachy tubers planted 2.5 months earlier.

These were in beds directly next to each other on the same end of my patch. The ones planted at the end of July only just now started blooming in early/ mid October but we're happy all along while everything else struggled with heat and other stressors. Very interesting!!!

Bessie

MissyWeitzel I like the information you're providing with the past few posts. It's food for my dahlia thoughts 💚

Teddahlia

I will use the following rant in some sort of dahlia article in the future:

I have a pet peeve when I see a humongous sized tuber clump from hell. People say "you should breed dahlias that make lots of tubers". That is B.S. when you think about it. When the dirt is still attached to the monster clumps, you can hardly lift them and that is after you dug carefully on all four sides to ensure the tubers "are not broken". You pry it from the ground and try to knock off enough dirt so that you can lift it. I put it into one of my collapsible crates and there is room for only two clumps. Normally they are at least 10 and usually about 15 clumps that fit in there. Then I have to lift the two tuber clumps into the garden trailer. Where is Arnold Schwarzenegger when you need him? He smoking a cigar and laughing as he watches me struggle to lift two dahlia clumps 3 feet. Then you have to wash the dirt from the clumps. More lifting and my hose end sprayer is set on full blast and the dirt slides from the tubers onto the ground or at least that is the theory. In actuality, the dirt is in between a dozen crevasses between tubers and as I point the sprayer into each crevasse I jump back expecting the water to bounce off the clump onto my face. Yes, I am nimble and jump away most of the time but one little slip or hesitation and the water bounces off the clump onto my face. Yes, my face was wet and dirty. And finally, the clumps are reasonably clean and off to the dividing table where I will take sweet revenge on the clump from hell. The tubers are so fat that there is no space to remove them with an eye. I have to divide the clump into two portions and I am out of dynamite. The stalk in the center of the clump is nearly 3 inches in diameter and I cut it off close to the clump. I insert two giant screw drivers into the cavity and pry them in opposite directions and like the diamond cutter who cleaves a million dollar rough diamond into two pieces, I celebrate with glee that I have conquered the monster tuber clump. This is a true story. I stored the big tubers and as it turned out most of them did not “eye out” in the Spring. I made a very intelligent choice and tossed all of the tubers onto the compost heap. The flowers that were somewhat pretty were not worth all that work. I will reveal the name of the variety to people who ask me in person as I do respect the breeder who probably had not anticipated that his seedling would cause me grief.

Tahoma Giraffe may be extinct and it made very few tubers and it has nothing to do with the above rant.

Teddahlia

Slightly more than half done digging the tuber clumps. Weather is now very wet but not freezing. We refuse to dig in the rain and some dry days are coming up. It will be a good feeling to have the tubers safely out of the ground. Since we are getting old, as we dig we discuss the fate of many varieties. We agreed to do a final sale on lots of our older introductions and no longer sell them and probably no longer even grow them. When you grow too few of a variety it is hard to keep the stock healthy.

Seedling picture.

Juliarugula

Finished today. Whew. Now I have to clean up. And start dealing with leaves…

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