Getting busy out in the garden this weekend? You might want to add this surprising yet helpful job to your list when tending to your dahlias.
Knowing how to grow dahlias is incredibly rewarding; they offer colourful, impressive blooms, and if looked after right, their tubers can allow them to come back stronger each year. And whilst learning how to overwinter dahlias is crucial for their surivival overwinter, there are things you can do in the spring and summer to get the most out of the plant too.
Whether you're sorting out the garden during the warm weather or want to help your garden thrive this summer, Monty Don is here with yet another nugget of wisdom to help you elevate your dahlia plants.
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Whilst you might already know whether or not you should be deadheading dahlias once their flowers are spent, according to Monty Don, via the BBC Gardeners' World Instagram, you'll also want to give them a chop earlier on, too.
"If, like me, you have dahlias temporarily growing in pots, but you can plant them out because either you don't have enough space or where you live there's still a risk of frost, it's a good idea to pinch out the tops, cutting down to a pair of leaves, this will encourage the plant to produce side shoots which will in turn carry more flowers," suggests Monty.
It might come as a surprise to be told to chop a large, growing stem off your already young plant, but as Monty explains, this will allow your plant more room to grow even bigger and bushier.
You could do this by hand; however, we'd recommend using an essential gardening tool like secateurs and ensuring that each time you cut, they're clean to avoid spreading diseases or pests.
Helping your dahlias flourish isn't the only benefit to this rather nifty yet unexpected pruning step. It'll also let you enjoy your dahlias as late-summer flowers.
"And also, means that although it will delay flowering by a week or two, it will extend flowering in early autumn by up to a month," he adds.
Even if the stems you're meant to cut have small buds on them, it's recommended you still make the cut, as these small sacrifices will indeed lead to bigger and better blooms when the time comes.
If you're looking for some more plants that will stick around after the summer flush, then adding plants for autumn colour to your garden can be a real treat.
