The way I stake is to go to Home Depot or Lowes, buy steel rebar about 2 feet long with a diameter of about a quarter inch. You could buy four feet and cut it in half with a little steel saw. It only costs a couple of dollars. I buy some longer lengths for Delphinium and tall Rudbeckia.
Then you can paint it black with hammerite or some other quick drying metal rustproofing paint. To make it stand up so you can paint it you knock it into the ground for three inches in the lawn. It dries very quickly and if a drop of paint falls on the lawn sure you mow it off next time you pass over it.
I do about twenty at a time, sit on a wee garden seat and just move along the little rebar posts knocked into the lawn in a line. painting as you go.
Make sure your eyes are covered, it is amazingly easy to poke yourself.
Since rebar has a twist pattern if you are of a design mind you could get a sponge and dry brush the rebar with gold so you have a sort of a very mild barber pole effect that looks quite rich.
Then for staking, just knock one close to the main stem of the dahlia with a hammer, or if using two stakes , one about six to ten inches from each other either side of the plant. Knock it into the ground six to nine inches. That will leave you with fifteen to eighteen inches of the black rebar above the ground, but with dark foliage you hardly see it at all, and it is low enough not to endanger you when you are around the plant.You are then able to brace the plant quite low down and largely invisibly.
When the plants die down you can take the rebar out, leave a piece of cane in the hole, just enough to show, and then over the winter you can paint your rebar again. Costs pennies, lasts forever.
I will post pictures of my dark dahlia bed with the stakes when I get back home next week.
