Topdecker said:I am far enough along this season to report...
I grew dahlias from seed - and I brought in just over 20 tubers from a pair of vendors. One vendor sold cut and wrapped tubers, the other sold the big clumps of dried roots.
The seed-grown dahlia also spent every other night on a heat mat and their days out in the sun getting hardened off. I had a pair of 1020 trays with dahlias and they rotated on the heat mat. They went from 1" paper pots to 3" plastic. I ended up with ~25 surviving plants - and they all have thus far outperformed any of the plants originating from cut tubers.
The clump planted dahlias are ahead of all of the cut tubers and have grown better than about a quarter of the plants started from seedlings. It makes sense as they have a larger reserve to draw upon. They put up unwanted extra stems, but getting to choose the best stem is a nice side benefit in my opinion.
At this point, I've had no blooms but 7 of the plants grown from seedlings are soon going to flower. Only one plant grown from tubers has a bud growing.
It is also likely that some of the varieties of dahlias that I have are not especially fast starters. For instance, Ivanetti appears to be healthy and very happy to slowly grow.
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