Dahlias, cut down or wait?

[ArseholierThanThou]

I have some still blooming and some, from the same batch of plug plants in March, that haven’t yet bloomed. Older ones of mine from seed that are now in their 3rd year all still have healthy green leaves but have finished blooming.

I’m sure they were all done by this time in previous years. Do I just chop them all down now to store for winter or keep hanging on? I’m worried about the ones that haven’t yet flowered. I don’t imagine they will have stored enough energy to come back. I bought them especially, there were none available in this country last year, so I don’t want to lose them. Any advice?
Tia.

I’m in the South so technically they could overwinter under a decent blanket of mulch but they are in a soggy spot so I will lift them at some stage. You can safely leave them until at least the first frosts, and overwinter if it’s well drained soil and you give them a nice protective layer of mulch.

They definitely need lifting, I’ve lost too many in the past by chancing it. I will wait a bit then, I just didn’t want the frost to kill them.
Thank you

Ours are still flowering, I cut a bunch only yesterday to have inside. I think we will leave until the end of the month.

I have lifted mine that have stopped flowering, a couple that in a really sheltered spot, I plan on mulching an d covering and hoping for the best.

they will get chopped at first frost.

so I have done both so far.
i have also started hankering after new ones, and Facebook algorithm is really ensuring my poor bank card is hammered 😂😂😂

Mine haven't finished either and I'd have usually lifted them by now. I think in the next week or so I'll do it.

I've lifted two that are in the garage and have one in a big pot in the garden. I'm going to cut that one right down and put a mulch layer over the top as it's in a pot with an alstromeria plant.

The pot will stay outside and the dahlia plant will either survive or not, the alstromeria should do as it's been outside for the last couple of years.

My potted ones have done really poorly this year, I won’t be doing any in to pots next year, Can’t really tell why!

I've lifted mine ( three, in pots) before the constant rain ( SW England) makes them think about rotting.
I've got lovely fat tubers!

eeek @FuzzyPuffling I never knew that, I'd best prioritise lifting them next weekend! They are very soggy and I'm in the south west where we have 10 days of rain due!

It's stopped raining here now and the sun's come out...quick!

I also did my one pot of begonias yesterday. The corm is lovely and fat.

They're all residing in my understairs cupboard now.

My DD had exactly the same tubers as me (we split them and had " dahlia wars!") and got very different results.
Now we're trying to work out why!

Thanks all, seems they are all pretty late this year then.
I have some in pots that survived well in the cold frame last year, the ones I lift will go in the garage but I will give them a little longer.

Do you have a greenhouse or shed/garage? Either way, cut blooms to put in a vase (even the buds as they will still bloom in a vase) then if the rest of the plants are in pots, then pop entire pots into greenhouse/shed etc. If in ground then then dig up and sit in empty pots and put into greenhouse/shed.

Or you could just wrap fleece around the plant after cutting the blooms off.

I lifted mine and then put them in a pot! So sort of half and half. I did cut them back just because they were enormous and I wouldn’t have been able to dig them up otherwise.

They were still very much flowering, but we are in London so pretty sheltered, so aren’t due a frost until December at the earliest, and I have heavy clay soil so worried about them rotting if I left them in the bed much longer - it has literally rained every single day since 19th Oct here (we seeded a new lawn that day so I have been noticing). I had a peony rot in the same bed last winter and they are normally fairly bombproof.

We shall see how they do.