2025 Dahlia Year In Review
2025 was a good year for dahlias. Was it a perfect one? Nope! But overall it was a good year.
Let’s break it down:
Win #1-The Horse Field- We broke in 3 new dahlia fields this year. We call this one the horse field because it used to be a horse field (original huh?) but at least everyone knows what I’m talking about. Originally I tilled it fall of 2024 and then we made our rows Spring of 2025 - raised them way up to get good drainage b/c the area is very flat. Lined our pathways with landscape fabric to deal with the weeds and then we planted. We used about 80% rooted cuttings- really only one variety (Sylvia) was primarily tubers because we lost our stock of that variety in the hurricane the previous year.
I think this field was probably our most productive and definitely the most uniform and consistent. That’s one of the great things about rooted cuttings— you get really uniform growth which is really helpful for keeping your pest control and fertilization consistent.
We dug a few rows of this field but most of it will stay for some early dahlias next year. But I’m happy to report that we had excellent tuber growth from those rooted cuttings. Nice high quality clumps just waiting to be divided this winter.
In this field we grew: Coseytown Gale, 20th Ave Gwen, Cafe Au Lait, Rock Run Ashley, KA Mocha Katie, Sylvia, Sweet Fabienne, Blizzard and Sweet Nathalie. We dug Coseytown Gale, KA Mocha Katie and Blizzard.
Loss #1: Broad Mite Infestation- We lost the majority of a row of Linda’s Baby plants to a serious broad mite infection. Thankfully we had 2 rows but it definitely hurt our production since that is such a good heat tolerant variety and one we rely pretty heavily on. The infection got so bad and the plants were really struggling so I decided to cut the plants back hard. These plants had been grown from tubers so I knew there was a possibility they could resprout but I also knew I could lose them all. Unfortunately, that’s what happened. But they were so poorly that it was really the only option- we had sprayed several times but couldn’t get it under control. We cut back and put all the foliage in a trash bag so as not to add the mites to our compost pile! I had maybe 10% of the cut back plants that survived.
What’s the lesson learned: We’ve been getting mites in around the same time for a couple of years now so we will begin spraying preventively for them instead of waiting to see the first signs. Left unchecked they quickly get out of control. But I definitely know the timing (early June) for my farm.
Win #2- The Hurricane tubers rebounded! We had some severe rot in one field after Hurricane Helene last fall. We lost 2 whole rows from that field but 2 of the rows were on 2nd year growth so I let them be over the winter, hoping that there were large tuber clumps underground. I really began to doubt when last Spring, only a few plants had sprouted(first photo below taken on May 20). But I gave it time— and turns out that’s what it needed. It took until mid June for the row to fully resprout. The previous year, I was harvesting blooms off this row in mid June. The middle phots below is from July 31. Third photo is September 24. All they needed was a little time!
Loss #2- Tuber rot on my new varieties- This one was frustrating but it could have been sooo much worse. I always plant all my new varieties in the same row. That way everything is in the same place when I’m ready to take notes/photos. I planted the tubers at the front of the row (left photo) and the rooted cuttings (right photo) in the back half. We lost about 80% of the tubers. Fortunately we had taken rooted cuttings of the majority of them. So we were able to evaluate and those cuttings made good tubers. More and more I’m seeing a high percentage of rot when I order in new tubers — it’s hard to acclimate new dahlias to my hot climate. So we are protecting our investments by making cutting backups!
Win #3- Dahlia Days Field Tour! I think this was my favorite part of the whole season. We were able to open our field for tours twice this Fall! I had so much fun and I think you all did too! You wanna talk about dahlia geek out fest??? Absolutely! Last weekend after our Sale opened, I had several of you tell me how much the tour influenced the varieties you chose to add to your gardens next Spring. How much you enjoyed getting to see the varieties in person, how you loved things you didn’t expect! We will definitely be doing it again next year!
There’s no such thing as a perfect dahlia season but this one came as close as any ever has! Yes, it had it’s struggles but we reached so many milestones that I’ve been reaching towards for many years!!
My Husband Flew Me to Paris to Buy Flowers For My Birthday
I had a birthday in October and my wonderful husband flew me all the way to Paris to buy me flowers from the oldest flower shop in Paris! And it was everything you would expect it to be— very hallmark movie experience!
Ok- so we didn’t fly to Paris just to buy flowers. We are farmers remember- we can’t afford to jet off to Paris just for flowers! But sometimes when you get the chance to write a really fantastical headline, you have to take it.
Here’s the real story. We have 11 wonderful nieces and nephews and over the past few years, we have been taking them on an international trip when they graduate high school. This year it was my nieces turn. She chose Paris (we also went to Iceland -24 hr stopover, London, and Scotland). So the running joke in our household was that my husband was flying me to Paris for my birthday since we were going in October.
For years, I’ve been following L’arrosoir on Instagram- I think I first heard about them on the Flower Podcast. The shop is owned by Adrienne Ryser, an American. I had to take advantage of the opportunity. On our first day in Paris, we struck out to visit the oldest flower shop in Paris.
As you approach, there are flowers spilling out on the sidewalk. It’s a display that will definitely stop you in your tracks. This display is created fresh each morning, the process is called La Vitrine.
As you enter the shop, you encounter the most sumptuous flower displays. So many textures and colors, all displayed beautifully!
I wondered for a few moments, just enjoying the beauty of it all. There was so much to choose from- lots of seasonal goodies. Rose hips, dahlias, hydrangeas, asters, cress, roses, scabiosa and amaranth. I even saw some aconitum- first time I’ve ever seen it in a floral shop. Makes a good cut flower but not commonly seen. It’s the tall blue flower seen through the window in the photo below.
After browsing for awhile, I began working with one of the florists to design a bouquet. We began chatting as flower people do. They enjoyed hearing about my flower farm and I enjoyed hearing about working in a florist in Paris. I chose a bouquet of warm fall colors which included some roses, lisianthus, crocosmia pods, eucalyptus, delphinium, pink clematis, rosehips, amaranth and astilbe. I actually declined the dahlias- I told her I had a few 1000 at home. I kinda wanted something different! After I chose my stems, the florist whipped it up into a beautiful bouquet! We enjoyed it in our air-bnb all week.
The shop is truly beautiful and everything you dream of in a Parisian flower shop. The light streaming through the windows is gorgeous! The smells are lovely and floral and the people are kind and welcoming.
If you ever get the chance, you absolutely must go! L’arrosoir- a flower lovers dream come true!
All photos by aforementioned wonderful husband, Joshua Smith.
Off With Their Heads!
Dahlias bloom and bloom — But only if you keep the old blooms cut off.
The process of removing spent blooms is called deadheading. Or as I like to say “ Off with their heads!” It can be a rather therapeutic process.
Later in the season I find we do more deadheading because there are less “quality” blooms. We get more smaller blooms or crooked stems because the stems get weaker as the season draws to a close.
On Fridays, we’ve begun to deadhead our field instead of harvesting it. Early in the season, I can usually find a place for the Friday blooms. I call them the “Friday Blooms” because at that point it’s too late to sell them to our florists (unless we get a last minute panic call) and since we don’t do farmer’s markets- they occasionally don’t have a home. Most weeks we donate/give away or we have an event at the farm to use up the Friday Blooms. But late in the season like this, it’s less labor to just deadhead them. The deadheading process takes an hour and a half whereas harvesting would take several hours.
I also think it’s not a bad idea to leave as much foliage on the plant this time of year to photosynthesize and let the plants make as many tubers as they can. When the daylight hours begin to shorten, those plants really get busy making tubers so why not give them a boost with some extra plant material.
If you don’t deadhead, the plant will begin to make seed heads. And if you are a dahlia breeder, then by all means- collect those seeds! But if tubers are your goal once the flowering stops, get to deadheading!
The Case for Cuttings Over Tubers
Every year I (like every other dahlia lover) buy in several new varieties. More than I should because we all know it’s hard to stop. In recent years, I’ve begun taking cuttings from these new tubers as they arrive. I do this for a few reasons but mainly so that if I really like a new variety, then I’m already a bit ahead. I try to get 2-3 cuttings from each tuber that I buy.
Usually I plant the original tuber and the cuttings together. But this year I changed it up! I planted all the tubers together and all the rooted cuttings together. They are all in the one row pictured below with tubers at the beginning and cuttings past that.
Well, the tubers were at the beginning but as you can see from the picture, the majority of them didn’t make it. This phenomenon of losing new varieties grown from tubers is way too common in a hot nasty climate like mine. I talk to other growers who have the same issue. I’ve found that over the years, that I’ve lost way too many new varieties that way ( and lots of money too!) This is why I began the cutting process from new tubers awhile back.
I’m increasingly seeing that a rooted cutting establishes better in my harsh climate. With nothing but roots to go on, the plant is forced to go search for food and water. Tubers get lazy and then our climate happens to them- We get too much rain or not enough rain and our soil temps get way too hot. The window we can successfully plant tubers gets smaller every year. But rooted cuttings with proper care can be planted pretty much any time during the frost free period.
This year our fields were planted around 70% from rooted cuttings and I have had one of the best dahlia years I can remember. My loss percentage has decreased dramatically. The cuttings weathered the harsh summer months so much better! The cuttings establish so much easier- you don’t have to worry about too much rain- they handle high levels pretty well. You can irrigate more if you are dry without worrying about rotting out your tubers. This also cools the soil down when it’s dry/hot.
I also like the uniformity of growth from cuttings. Tubers sprout at different rates. But if you plant the same size cuttings out all at once, they grow very uniformly. And as a cut flower production farm- this can be hugely beneficial in helping to predict your crop. Cuttings can also help you succession plant your dahlias if you live in a long season climate. It’s nice to have some fresh plants when all the others are getting tired.
The more I observe the difference between the tubers and cuttings- the more benefits I see to cuttings in a harsh climate.
Hurricane Helene….Thoughts from the “Been there, done that” (Can we never do it again please?) Camp
I lived in North Florida many years ago and it was there I experienced my first hurricane. I remember being a bit freaked out until my boyfriend (now husband) explained how a category 2 was nothing to be worried about. And he was right. It blows my mind how the tropical storm strength of Helene was worse than that category 2.
Today, at almost a year past, I’d like to take a look back. It’s important to learn from events like this. It’s actually amazed me how many times I’ve thought to myself over this past year- “that’s a result of the hurricane.” You don’t realize how long lasting these effects are until you experience it first hand. I’ll of course be speaking from a farmer’s perspective. For reference, my farm was about 10-15 miles east of where the eye came through Upstate South Carolina. We were fortunate to have been on the Eastern side. And we by no means had anything close to the damage of North Carolina. Please know that I’m in no way trying to sensationalize what we encountered or diminish what Western NC went through last year. However I believe all experiences are valid and should be reflected upon.
So let’s get started: We prepared the same way we do for any big storm- tropical storms happen usually at least once during our Fall season. We made sure our plants were supported well- added extra string to tie things up, made sure netting was tight, etc. We cleaned up anything around the farm that could catch in the wind. We harvested everything possible before the storm hit (which was tough b/c we had torrential rains in the days before the hurricane). And then we hoped for the best.
At first I thought the flower farm had been mostly spared. It was flooded in a lot of areas but the drainage improvements we had made over the years were working (although slower than normal b/c of the water volume). We had trees down on our pig barn and our woods will never be the same- lots of sunlight now. And we’ll be cleaning it up for another year at least.
Then however I went to our offsite flower field:
This field got tossed. This field doesn’t have the trees as a wind barrier that our home farm does. We had multiple rows of white dahlias that were coming into bloom. We had harvested for one week off of this field. It was going to be one of our major sources of income for October. Losing the harvest from this field resulted in around a $6000 loss. Overall, the whole farm included, our season ended 3 weeks early last year due to the storm damage and lack of electricity to run a flower cooler.
Side Note: I’m going to state the financial loss - not b/c it’s all about that but because of climate change creating an increasingly unstable climate this is becoming a bigger issue for farmers. It’s important to be aware of it and knowing how it affects our agricultural industry. Yes, I know I grow flowers not food. But the income from these flowers provides jobs for multiple people.
The ground was totally water logged and I feared that I not only had a loss of cut stems but also tuber loss as well. Here’s the same rows in Spring of this year: (I estimate we lost 60% of the tubers in that field total)
The rows on the left and far right (off screen) were a total loss and the other two had a lot of holes- this picture was taken May 23. At that point I really felt like I had waited long enough to let the overwintered tubers resprout. These two rows were growing on second year roots when the storm hit which is why I think they survived. The first year roots just weren’t enough and rotted quickly. I tried leaving them in but in late March, we dug and found only a handful of decent tubers.
So at this point we began filling in the holes with tubers and some rooted cuttings. And these are the same rows (taken last week):
It’s back to how it looked right before the hurricane. The resiliency of plants amazes me!
Other losses incurred from the hurricane- around $2000 of loss product that was stored in our flower cooler. This could have been much higher if the storm had come earlier in the week. We had delivered most of our product for the week (for events that were mostly cancelled). We had a gorgeous compost pile.
Since then we have acquired a generator set up that can run our flower cooler. Storms that knock out the power for a day or two are not uncommon around here.
We also lost a lot of herbaceous perennials due to flooding which resulted in loss income this past spring. Our yarrow and phlox were the worst and a total loss because they sat in saturated soil, mostly underwater for 2 days. ($3000 income loss)
However the biggest loss came in the reduction of the amount of tubers we dug a month later. What we found was good but once it was all divided, we had around 50% of the volume we normally have. Tuber sales are a major income generator for our farm. They provide income that pays our employees through the winter. Income that pays for supplies, seeds, plants that you have to buy when you don’t have any flowers to sell. When we finally got to the end of Spring and tuber sales were finished for the year, we came out around $10,000 less than previous years. I was thankful we had already begun planning to sell rooted cuttings before the storm struck. It could have been worse. The cutting sales made up a decent portion of the tuber loss.
There’ve been other random plants that I’ve noticed throughout the year- some of our daffodils rotted from flooding (and those things are so tough- this was surprising to me!) So many times I’ve realized small things that are a result of the hurricane this past year. Overall, an income loss of $18000+.
I know this is small compared to some farms that were literally washed away. But like I said before, I think all experiences are valid and should be shared. I think the real question is- how did we continue on? How were we resilient?
Well on my farm that looked like a couple of things: we ramped up the rooted cutting offerings to more than we had originally planned for our first year. We held a spring and fall plant sale. We began a cut flower membership community. All these things helped fill in the income gaps.
But more importantly, I’ve learned what this little farm and crew are capable of. I think this has been one of the hardest years of farming I’ve ever been through (yeah, even worse than covid). But I’ve seen what pivoting your business, being willing to change and innovate- how those can open doors you didn’t see coming. I’ve worked with the best farm crew I’ve ever had this past year! Seriously wouldn’t still be farming without them. There have been so many times they’ve taken the reins in one area when I had needed to focus on another.
So looking back a year later? Do I wish it never happened? Well - yeah I think we all wish we didn’t have to learn lessons by going through adversity but I’m old enough to know that is how life works. So as we come up on this first anniversary of the storm I hope we never see the likes of again, I hope you reflect and I hope you find your life better than it was.