I went to Longwood Gardens dahlia show held by the Greater Philadelphia Dahlia Society last September, and of course I also visited the rest of the wonderful conservatory and the outside gardens there.

While there I saw the Dahlias grown by the experts at Longwood, and I was amazed at how thick the plants were. I took a closer look at them, and as I looked down near the base of the plants, it was obvious they had punched the main stem at the 3rd or 4th lead level. But as I looked at the multiple lateral stems that has been caused to grow because of that main stem pinching, I noticed that they had also pinched the lateral branches a few leaf levels up the stem. That additional pinching forced the plants to grow even more lateral stems out of the main lateral stems, which produced significantly thicker plants.

Has anyone tried this? I am going to experiment with it.