Dahlias do fine for me in my Raleigh area garden but without full blazing sun they don't always bloom as much.

We are warm enough that you don't have to dig and store the tubers during the winter - but voles love them so I dig my favorites and keep them in pots in the shed to protect them.

I grew a bunch from seed last year, and they bloomed beautifully their first year. It will be interesting to see how many survive the winter. I think overall they tend to have a 50/50 chance.

Tammy, I found a new place to order mine from, I adore dahlias. Will send you the link.

Carla

I'm a novice dahlia grower and a major fan of the GW DAHLIA forum. I learned from the southern dahlia growers there that some [most?] dahlias really hate our hot weather, so those of us growing them in hot climates need to choose dahlias that are heat tolerant. The Georgia Dahlia Society has a list of heat tolerant dahlias, as well as recommendations for growing dahlias in the south. I'm in the process now of ordering some of their recommended heat tolerant ones.

Thanks for posting ashef. I did not know that there were differences in heat tolerance among dahlias.

I have grown Rothsay Reveler for 3 years with great success. It's in a plastic pot with the bottom cut out, to protect it from marauding voles. It was a freebie from a fellow GardenWebber. I LOVE it. The last two years it has practically formed a 4' by 3' shrub covered in blooms.

There's a pic on this thread: Purple Dahlias

The first pic is mislabelled as Edinburgh but it's actually Rothsay Reveler. Later in the thread she corrects her mistake and shows Edinburth and Rothsay Reveler side by side.

Alicia, that Rothsay Reveler is gorgeous! Thanks so much for linking the picture, I'm adding it to my list. The reason I found out about the heat tolerant list is that I've tried growing dahlias before and have had inexplicably mixed results. So I was trying to figure out why some were lush and gorgeous and others were failures under the exact same conditions before buying. Given the water situation, Im going to limit plants for the summer to a few that will be hopefully be smashing. Allie

They do great here in Charlotte, my husband grows them from the bareroot tubers. We have them on the east side so they don't get blasted with hot summer sun. And we have never dug them up for winter, no problem there.

Parks (and others no doubt)carry seeds for Stargazer mix that are about 18 inches tall and are lovely and cast iron reliable, even in clay with a drought. The only drawback is mixed colors, but once you see what they are you can dig them up, select, move etc. The colors are nice. So easy to germinate, grow on, transplant, and I don't dig them up in the fall.

ashef, thank you. Probably why some of mine wither and scream for shade!

Carla

Last year I went on a house tour in Flat Rock NC and the owners were avid Dahlia growers and won quite a few awards for their Dahlias. They did dig them up every year for the winter.

The mountains are zone 6b I think, so the dahlias have to be dug.

I have seen amazing dahlias grown in gardens in the mountains. In fact whenever I think of mountain gardens I think of dahlias and yellow daylilies. Yellow daylilies are naturalized there the way orange daylilies are here.

I will add that some of the showiest dahlias to enter the state fair come from around Asheville. When I have seen dahlia in the wild (Mexico and Costa Rica) they were growing high up in the mountains where it is definitely cooler.

One trick that you rarely see mentioned to propagate dahlias is to root stem cuttings. I've done it with most of mine. It helps if you trim 10inch sections before they form full flowers - but with dahlias, most every stem has a bud or two on the end so it is hard to avoid. I don't get 100% success but enough do that I am happy. They root right below a node so trim them to about an inch below a node, dip in rooting hormone, set in damp media and cover with plastic.

That's good to know. I didn't know that dahlias could be increased that way.