Are your dahlia plants growing big and lush—but still not producing flowers? Don’t give up on them! Let me share a few simple things you can do right now to help encourage more dahlia blooms before the season ends. We’ll look at how much sunlight your dahlias are receiving, whether your fertilizer may contain too much nitrogen, why different dahlia varieties bloom at different times, and how giving your flowers deep cuts can encourage stronger stems and even more blooms.

Every dahlia—and every garden—grows at its own pace. With a few simple adjustments and a little patience, your cutting garden may still have a beautiful season ahead!

For a visual of what different Dahlia varieties look like, where to cut your Dahlia blooms and more, join us on YouTube in the video linked up top! Now let’s dive into creating the most beautiful Dahlia patches!

How Much Sun Dahlias Need?

The first thing to consider when tweaking your Dahlia patch is the amount of sunlight your plants are getting. Dahlias need all the energy they can get from the sunlight to begin blooming as early as they possibly can!

Are your Dahlias getting full sun? They need sun from the first moment it rises in the morning and to the last minute it sets in the afternoon. Dahlias love getting baked by the sun all day long and absolutely need full sun all day!

If your Dahlias are in pots, go ahead and move them to a part of your garden that stays sunny throughout the day.

If your Dahlias are in the ground in a shaded area, don’t give up on them yet! Make sure you give them some extra support, whether that’s stakes, netting, a tomato cage (I’ll link my favorite Dahlia support and gardening tools at the end of this blog!) or tying them off gently to a frame. Dahlias that don’t get full sun grow leggy, thin stems and will need help supporting their own blooms.

As you tend to your Dahlias, be on the lookout for the area of your garden space that gets the most sunlight and plan to move them there next growing season.

Fertilize Your Dahlias!

Fertilizing your Dahlias is a really amazing way to give your plants that boost they need to start producing blooms and growing healthy foliage and stems. In our Dahlia patch, we use two different fertilizers on our plants:

From around late April/ early May when we plant them to mid-July, we give our Dahlias Alaska Fish fertilizer. Yes, it smells terrible! But this fertilizer has all more nitrogen and other amazing nutrients that your Dahlias need to thrive and grow strong, healthy stems and foliage before they begin putting on blooms.

After mid-July to when our patch gets dug up for the winter, we feed our plants with Alaska MorBloom fertilizer. This fertilizer has less nitrogen content and encourages your Dahlia plant to put on more and more flowers.

If your Dahlias are producing lots of healthy, thick foliage but no bloom heads, your soil could have too much nitrogen in it. Nitrogen signals your plants to grow foliage and stems but not bloom! A fertilizer with little to no nitrogen in it will give the plant the right signal to begin producing blooms.

If you’ve recently given your Dahlias a dose of a high nitrogen fertilizer, give them a few weeks to work through those vitamins before fertilizing them with a MorBloom style fertilizer! Too much fertilizer can burn your plants or stress them out.

Dahlia Varieties: Don’t Forget This!

It’s important to remember that every variety of Dahlia will grow and bloom at different rate. Not every Dahlia will grow to or bloom at the same height, and some Dahlias produce a much bigger number of blooms than another! Try not to compare varieties as you care for your patch since they will all grow uniquely.

The Secret to Getting Dahlias to Bloom Even More!

There’s one last thing you can do to encourage your plants to bloom the most they can, and it’s this: Harvest!

When you let a Dahlia bloom go to seed, the plant will start to slow down and put more energy into developing seeds, rather than new bloom heads. The best way to keep them producing blooms is to deadhead spent blooms and cut the others while they’re still fresh and ready to be enjoyed.

Cut your Dahlia bloom when it has opened to a point that you like the look of. Once a Dahlia bloom is cut, it won’t open any more in your vase! Some of our varieties we enjoy best when they’re wide open, slightly closed, or still have a tight center. You get to decide what you like best!

Tips On Harvesting Your Dahlia Blooms:

While you’re harvesting and encouraging your dahlias to grow, grow, grow, here’s a few ways to ensure you’re getting every bloom out of your plant:

Dahlias usually grow bloom heads in sets of three. The middle will be the first to open, leaving two buds on either side of it. Make sure you’re only cutting off this middle bloom head and not the buds. Cutting the middle bloom allows the two side buds to get more energy from the plant and open up.

Once you’re left with a bare stem with all three blooms cut and gone, go ahead and do a deep cut, down under a few leaf sets where you can see fresh growth coming on. Deep cuts that take away a few leaf sets encourage the plant to grow stronger, thicker stems. If you only do short cuts at the first leaf set near the blooms, you’ll get keep getting really short, skinny and wobbly stems on your Dahlias.

Don’t be afraid to waste a few smaller buds here and there if it means you’ll get a deep cut and healthier stems on your next flush of blooms! As long as you see those little nodes of fresh growth popping out on above the leaf set you cut, your plants will keep blooming and stay happy.

A Final Tip:

Friend, I have one last tip to help you enjoy your beautiful garden space. Whether this is your first season growing fresh flowers, or your 50th, it’s important to not compare your garden to someone else’s. Tend and care for your plants the best you can and focus on giving them the best environment your space has to offer!

If you and your neighbor plant the same Dahlia on the same day, they will still grow and bloom at different rates. Every garden and yard has it’s own little ecosystem that affects all sorts of things throughout one growing season.

As you care for your garden, take a moment to slow down and soak in the beauty, whether big or small, of your space. How wonderful to get to create abundance right in our backyards!

Our Dahlia Care Essentials:

🌿 Our favorite fertilizers we use in our dahlia patch:

Fish Fertilizer: https://amzn.to/4o6flhY

MorBloom: https://amzn.to/4xDVnPi

🪏 Our Dahlia support and other garden essentials: https://amzn.to/3QrIR1I

🌸 Just starting out with growing Dahlias? Watch our complete Dahlia Growing Playlist on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfPIhWGHaEXGUTP_smVbCKbh9cF1Q1Yi5

🌺 Dahlia tubers from our Ciderpress Lane cutting garden are offered seasonally in the spring. Sign up for our email list and stay tuned for future tuber-sale information! https://ciderpresslane.com/

We started with only a few dahlias, and our cutting garden has grown a little bigger and better every year. We’re so happy to share what we’ve learned and cheer you on as you grow your own beautiful garden.

Here's to making memories around your table and in your garden! If you're loving growing, cooking and filling your table be sure to check out our cookbooks, Dinner Changes Everything and Red Tin Treats ECookBook. It is amazing what happens when you turn your space into a beautiful tool to gather your people!

Our backyard table…

Did you know that when you watch our videos you help fight human trafficking! It's true, years ago we decided to use our everyday life as a way to fight against slavery and trafficking. Since then we started hosting the Freedom Dinners and when our business started, we knew we wanted it to give back too. We donate 10% of all of our profits to AtlasFree⁩ to fight for those that cannot stand up for themselves.