My 2026 Dahlia Order

My 2026 order from Swann Island Dahlias was pretty modest, just a single selection: Dahlia 'Candlelight,' which arrived yesterday. It joins a very small collection of four other dahlias. They are all in shades of orange, yellow, and purple. I have a small cuting garden with peonies, fragrant lilies, and dahlias.

I grow my dahlias in 10-gallon black nursery pots with very free draining soil. I've found that five gallon pots don't provide enough soil mass to protect the tubers from our winter temperatures. You can grow dahlias in the ground here in Salem and leave them in through the winter, but I think the flowers are too gaudy for my garden and I don't like the foliage. But they're amazing in a vase.