Martha Stewart's Top Tips For Growing Beautiful Dahlias Year After Year

In the early '70s, Martha Stewart started on the road to building her empire, becoming one of the most recognized and trusted faces in home and garden today. Over the years, she has amassed knowledge covering many areas, including cooking, interior design, and gardening. Recently, Martha Stewart shared some tips about growing dahlias and how to keep them coming back each year. Her advice includes providing the right environmental conditions, protecting them from the elements, and storing the tubers properly in the off-season so they can be replanted.

We know Martha Stewart grows gorgeous flowers for her spring gardens, but if you're curious where she grows her dahlias, the home and garden guru said she plants them behind her vegetable greenhouse. That location leads to her first tip: When planting dahlias, choose a big area that receives full sun six to eight hours a day. 

While dahlias are beautiful and effective at attracting pollinators like hummingbirds to your garden, their height can be an issue. Most varieties can reach up to 5 feet tall, leaving them vulnerable to strong breezes. Martha's next tip is to plant your dahlias in a place that protects them from harsh winds that could bend or break the stems — hence the protective greenhouse location. The tubers go into the ground in the spring and grow throughout the summer right up until frost hits, so those seasonal storms can spell trouble without proper placement. So, be sure to take that into consideration when deciding on the best place to plant your dahlias for stunning blooms.

If you live in zone 8 or above, your dahlias will grow as perennials and return next year without special treatment. But for those in cooler climates, bringing your dahlias back will take a bit of effort. Martha's next tip involves the proper care of dahlia tubers at the end of the season. The expert said that she waits until her plants are done flowering and the leaves turn brown, then she digs up the tubers and stores them out of the cold until the spring. While the dahlias are done for the year, the tubers have stored energy for next year's blooms. Be sure to carefully dig them up about 10 days after the first frost but before a hard freeze. 

Before storing, clean off the tubers, toss any that don't look healthy, and set the ones you're going to store aside for a couple of days. Then, place the tubers in a bag with coarse vermiculite and keep them in an area that stays above freezing but below 50 degrees Fahrenheit (F) — 40 to 45 degrees F is ideal. When spring arrives, Martha said she removes them from storage, plants them back in the ground behind her greenhouse, and grows her dahlias once again.