Begonia and Dahlia

Dahlias are too variable from seed to my mind. I tried them one year and 90% of them weren't worth keeping for another year. Since then I've been building up a collection of named varieties; I reckon to get 5 - 10 good cuttings from a stored tuber each Spring, so it only takes a couple of years to get plenty (or a few starter-tubers if you aren't as mean as me - I only buy one!)

 

oh! does that mean i can just leave my Dalia's as they are in their pots & just move the pots into the shed to overwinter?

 

Yes. That'll save you a bit of digging.

 

ah brill! happy days!

 

Like this:
http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/projects/creative-projects/how-to-take-dahlia-cuttings/104.html

 

I would bury the cuttings far more than in the video. They will root from each leaf junction (which is buried). I don't bother with cuttings that take off some of the tuber, as I want to keep all the stems that form (although interesting point that there might be too many and overcrowd the crown), so I wait until the shoots are long enough that I can cut just above the bottom leaf pair (which will then break a pair of buds that will make the plant more bushy) and then cut that cutting just below the lowest leaf pair (that bit not mentioned in the video I think?) and then remove leaves to have 2" to 2.5" of clear stem and leave another full leaf pair above plus an emerging set of leaves, and I trim half off the full sized leaves as per the video. So you need quite a long piece of material to work with - its going to have 4 or 5 fully formed leaf pairs and one emerging pair. They root very easily I find, although this Spring everything was so late that my cuttings were way behind. Worth forcing the dormant tubers into growth in February I reckon.

 

Also, the flowers from a cutting are MUCH bigger than from the tuber itself!!

Val