Cut your flowers into hot water...hot to the touch but not hot enough to cook the stems. Then set your buckets of flowers in a cool place and tlet them cool over night. THAt will set the petals so they do not drop as fast. Store them in water in the buckets...Don;;t know how you could do this with heads down, LOL. Cut the stem a slong as possible, w hich usually means cutting down past the next buds. HOwever, most dahlias are so prolific they won't mind at all.

I sell mine in mixed bouquets, usually mixed with other summer flowers. But that is just how my business works. At our farmers market someone sells them at so much per stem, or so many for so much$$. Can't remember what the figures are.

The only thing that I would add to LizaLily's suggestions are to cut while it's cool - morning and evening. I have found that if the plant is cool when your cutting, the flower will last much longer.

We have aprox 1000 dahlia plants in the field along with sunflowers plus other assorted flowers we use/sell for filler. We sell by the stem and the Dahlias are in their own buckets as a mass of mixed colours and types. Most customers are drawn by the mass of colour and are careful when chosing and pulling stems.

People seem to love to making up their own bouquets - I tell my customers that they should pretend that they're in their own garden. I may loose 3 or 4 flowers/day due to damage, but I think of the time I save not making up multiple bouquets. Plus I will make bouquets at the market from items that don't sell well individually. They sell well too.

Phil

We don't cut into hot water because we don't exactly know how we could manage doing that with two acres of dahlias. We do cut into hydrating solution which does help. We don't have the luxury of harvesting only in the morning or evening. We are in the field all day (12-15 hours) on Tuesday before our Wednesday market, and the same hours on Thursday and Friday before our Saturday markets.

Except for some bouquets made with the small dahlias, we sell single stems just like Flower Phil; and, for the same reasons: people really like to pick out their own stems. People are automatically drawn to the masses of color. We also make specialty bouquets at market.

Oh I just get tired thinking of 1000 dahlias- but what an impressive sight they must present when in bloom!

Happy upcoming birthday Flower Phil! Ask for a generator and portable hot water heater as a gift- then you can cut into hot water in the middle of your dahlia acres. ; )

What is a hydrating solution? What are its ingredients?

"Ask for a generator and portable hot water heater as a gift- then you can cut into hot water in the middle of your dahlia acres." Poochella, you are kidding. Right? No money allocated for generators and portable hot water heaters. More dahlia tubers? Yes. A couple more hoophouses? You bet ya.

Yes, of course I was kidding.

I also sell mine by the stem. I love it when the parents let their children pick out the ones they want -- they make such colorful choices. If I had any artistic talent at all, I'd also make some boquets to sell. I'd be interested in knowing from those who sell by the stem how you package them for the people to take home. I've used the plastic sleeves, but they just seem to crush them, and they're expensive.

Thanks for the help.

Teresa

Sooooo, what IS "a" or "the" common price per stem? Or in a bunch of 10 to a florist? Or as one of the elements in a finished bouquet?

With all that picking and choosing from a central bucket, doesn't that much handling by the public hurt the stems or flowers? I've only been VERY minimally around a few dahlias ever,(saw a program on them at a garden club meeting last year & speaker had some on display!) so growing my small sample group of 150 or so is a new experience, to say the least! I'm really not familiar w/ how hardy they are when shoved around in a bucket.

And flowerfarmer, what kind of containers are you using to hold your $40.00 preplanted dahlia pots? Glazed ceramic? LOL!--partly. A local Lowe's has some short ones in bloom in a plastic terra cotta pot (16" looked fairly nice except needed some dead-heading), for something like $16.99. Of course, IT's "Lowe's", and you're not, you have much higher quality, I'm sure. Just wondering what kind of pot you use, and what kind of reactions you get to your $40.00 price.

An aside and explanation for my question: An older couple came into the nursery a week or so ago, asked the price of our grass sod rectangles out front. We said $1.25, and they left in the BIGGEST huff we've ever seen! Looked like a cartoon character w/ smoke at their heels. Good riddance, as they were the rudest people we've seen in a while! So I can imagine what people like them might say about a $40.00 container! LOL! I think grass at Lowe's or Walmart is like .75 or .95, like they're going to "save" all that much by the time they drive two miles and get out and shop etc.

Anyway, back to pricing dahlias. Do you charge more for different sizes, ie, Dinner Plates, or little poms, or Karmas? Do your buyers quibble that one color (or variety) is $X, but the next one is $Y? I know we talked about Karms's some earlier this year, but I never did hear a price for them.

Thanks,

Susi.

Susi -- I just love your little aside stories. Promise that you will never stop with those stories no matter how big you get. As far as pricing: Let me sleep on it... Well, actually we haven't set prices for this season. I can look up last year's prices if that will help. They are priced for different sizes. That's to say, pompom, small, medium, large, dinnerplate, etc. Sometimes the small get large enough to be considered medium. And, by now you are probably totally confused. We don't sell to florists. Not the way some of you do anyway. We have florists who come to our market in the metropolitan area. At our other market, we have a couple of guys from an unscale florist come down, climb up in the truck, buy whatever. That is fine by us. I have trouble with the so called subscription bouquets that I make for customers who pick them up at market. It really puts too much pressure on me Friday night before market. I just want to tell them--You know what, just pick out something nice on the table or I will make one. But, they always want them extra, extra tall and colors I may or may not have available.

Ha. Had to laugh about the sod; and, do we have people like that at market? You betcha. We don't call them customers though. I just read a post over on the Professional Forum. A gal quit her job in the corporate world basically because she was tired of working for a jerk. Now she is doing gardening jobs. Guess who her customers are? Right. Those same jerks. The great thing about doing market is we see all kinds of people. Some are complete jerks; and, so full of themselves you want to puke. Some buy our flowers. Some don't. But, the great thing is we don't have to work for them. And, the best part is that we always have a story after each and every market just like your sod story Susi. You would think by now we might have seen and heard it all. But, no. Some of our favorites are when they ask if the bouquet needs sun or shade. Or, better yet: Should I take it home and plant it? We have the deadpan look down to a science now. Oh, man. Did I ever get off track. Anyway, my favorite thing about this business is the market. It is just the end all.

Regarding the potted dahlias. Yes. Well, we plant them in imported Italian pots which are very costly to say nothing of the shipping charge. Actually, they are nice patio pots which we get for a song and a dance because it's who ya know, and not what ya know comes in handy--sometimes. Of course we aren't Lowe's, Home Depot or Walmart. Don't even want to be one when I grow up.

As far as dahlias being mishandled. Yes. Sometimes. That's part of marketing. We lose a few; but, generally people are careful. At least they're buying. Sometimes we'll float the flowerheads in a pretty little dish on display. We also give broken ones away to children. By the way, I have wanted to mention this when people write about giving flowers to the little girls. Little boys love flowers. They love picking out a bouquet for their grandmother, mother, aunt, themselves, whoever. Let's not forget that.

Why am I so tired?????

wow this is a lot of good advice but i was wondering if i shoulod put my flowers in some refridgerators i have handy or just let them in cold water until i sell them. And i was thinking of doing a pick your own flowers type thing this summer has anyone had any kind of sucess with that. I live in Lancaster Dutch Country so i was hoping i could sucker the tourists into buying flowers before they leave. :o)

I think I Have read that one should NOT refrigerate dahlias...they don't like cool temps! I think just cooling off in the shade makes them the happiest. OR I cool mine in an air-conditioned room with it set about 60 degrees.

Just another suggestion for those who wish to cut into hot water, use black picking buckets.
Poochella, I almost fell off my chair laughing at the thought of carrying all that equipement around the field along with multi-buckets of flowers.
We are also lucky enough to have a cool basement to store our cuts in until we go to market. I sort and stack the flowers (start with short stems and place progressively longer stems in large 'paint buckets') to carry more flowers. We have separate display buckets (Blue shows the flowers best)
We only sell the small/medium sized flowers as space for transport makes a big difference on the numbers we would be able to carry to market. ie: Chilson's Pride, Rip City, Maarn, Bo-De-O are a few of the Dahlias we have.
I've tried plastic sleeves, and they don't work for me. I now use waxed tissue paper available at florist suppiers. I also put all sold flowers in a small plastic sandwich bag w/ a 1/2 paper towel & water; using an elastic to keep it in place. At the same time I am also telling my customers how to keep flowers lasting longer and include a simple recipe for cut flower food. I've got the whole proccedure down to about 15 seconds when I wrap the flowers for the customer. All these people carrying my flowers around the market brings me more customers.
In past years I've 'Dumped' any leftover flowers from the market at the Extended Care of a hospital. I never totally sell out. Nothing wrong with the flowers but the last few never sell and we DON'T keep Dahlias for the next market (we do 4-5 different markets/week).

Phil