Email sent to subscribers February 16th

 

Hey, friends!

I hope your hibernation season is going splendidly and you’re getting excited for the upcoming season! Because I’m not super active on social media, I’ll give you a brief rundown of what has been going on here over the winter and some information about this coming season. If you just want the tuber sale details, feel free to skip to the tuber sale announcement towards the bottom!

I started pulling tubers up mid-October and divided the last clump on November 23rd. My process of dividing tubers has evolved, and I finally have a system that I’m satisfied with! I’m happy to report another year of healthy tubers, visibly free of gall. It’s always a little stressful pulling up tubers and hoping everything under the soil looks as healthy as what is above it.

 

 

My system looks a little like this… pull only the amount of tuber clumps I can divide in one day, one variety at a time. Rinse and divide all of one variety, fill a crate and bring them inside by a fan for 4 hours. Soak my dividing surface and all tools in bleach, then pull another variety while the bleach sits. This goes on all day until I can’t feel my fingers. At that point I question my life choices then go inside write the variety on every single tuber, then layer those tubers in bins with vermiculite. Throw lids on the containers and they are headed to the cool shed.

 

 

A great new addition to our dahlia storage system this year was converting our garden shed into cold storage. My hubby insulated a shed and created a system using a window A/C unit and Ink Bird controllers to trick the A/C unit to cool the shed past the 60 degree minimum down to low 40 degrees. We followed a few great tutorials on YouTube you can find here and here. Most of the items we used are located on our Favorite Things page here.

 

 

The tubers loved the consistent temperatures of 40-43 degrees and the humidifier kept humidity levels at or above 80%. A space heater set to 39 degrees kept anything from freezing. I also used a Govee smart sensor that was set to alert my phone if the temperature or humidity was outside of the acceptable range. This took so much worry over overwintering off my shoulders and gave me the ability to relax a bit and work on other things.

Another game changer this season is what I call the “Red Shed”. If you don’t already know, I have been running this business out of my house. I converted the whole upstairs into my grow room/packing/shipping/tuber paradise. I loved it because the commute to work was only a few steps from the espresso machine, but my kiddos wanted their upstairs back. We were lucky enough to find a retired truck scale house (think of those shacks next to the truck scale at your local sand, gravel and dirt yards you drive onto to get your vehicle weight).

 

 

She is 25 feet long by 12.5 feet wide and a whopping 14 feet tall, which means moving her was near impossible. When the company built it, they weren’t planning on moving it on a road. Fast forward through two months of quotes to get it moved, permits, renting gigantic forklifts to get her on and off the truck and a few anxiety attacks watching her move down the road while barely skimming under streetlights, and she was here and glorious. She has running water, heat, A/C, lots of windows to let the outside in and just enough space for me to get into trouble with the number of cuttings I can play with.

 

 

Speaking of cuttings, I’m in full cutting swing over here. There are going to be a few changes to cuttings this year. First, I’m offering potted cuttings as well as cuttings in Root Riot cubes. This will be a fluid change and I’m not sure what percentage of cuttings will be in 3 inch pots and what percentage will be in rooting cubes. The potted cuttings will have the rooting cubes removed, Mykos added, use Sunshine Mix #4 soilless potting medium (which satisfied my Dept of Agriculture inspector by making it legal to ship) and at least two nodes buried for optimal tuber production. But, more on that later.

 

 

Another huge change will be that all cuttings are going to be shipped in thin cardboard boxes instead of the recycled plastic clamshells. I have found that the cuttings ship better in paper rather than plastic and retain less humidity during shipping and temperature changes. I’m excited to be shipping with less plastic and get cuttings to you without putting the plants through as much stress. It does take more time to grow and ship this way, but I have, and always will, prioritize quality over quantity. You may see a reduction in the number of cuttings offered at sales to accommodate these processes.

Now onto the fun stuff! It’s almost sale time! I like to wake my tubers up before having a sale, which means letting them sleep all winter and pulling them around the second week of February. I only like sending out tubers that have very visible eyes or tiny sprouts so there isn’t second guessing about viability. They are waking up now and doing great. I’ll spend the next two weeks going over counts to get final numbers for the tuber sale.

 

 

I’m not going to sugar coat it; the 2026 Sale Information is not short and sweet. It could be considered my first literary novel. I went into a lot of detail so there aren’t any surprises come sale time. If you have a question, it will likely be answered there. Please go and read through if you’re planning on shopping the sale. There is important information there that you will be interested in. If you have read through it and still have any questions, please reach out to me!

Finally, I just want to share my gratitude for each and every one of you that has supported my little business over the past few years and in the future. Showing up in droves to my in person cutting sale, online sales, the lasting friendships I have created, the reviews you leave me on Facebook and the dahlia groups. It makes my day every time I am tagged in posts, get a new review on our Facebook page, or get sweet messages of gratitude from one of you.

I was sitting quietly the other night, and it hit me (as it continuously does) how lucky I am to be able to do what love. The people I have met through dahlias, being able to work from home and still spend time with my young kiddos, the ability to donate to auctions like youth baseball, storm and flood fundraisers, food bank donations, flowers to assisted living facilities… it is all because of you and your support of my small business. I appreciate it more than you could possibly know and I am so grateful that you put your trust in me to provide you with these amazing flowers. You are the reason my kids get to play piano, basketball, baseball and I still get to experience all of that with them. I am and will be forever incredibly grateful.

 

Oh, yes.

Our 2026 tuber sales will open on February 28th at 4PM PST. The website will be password protected starting at 7AM February 28th to load inventory. No password will be needed at sale time. I am adding and pulling varieties on the website as I get final counts. All varieties listed the morning of February 27th will be available at the sale. Please read the short novel of info regarding the sale by clicking here.

With so much gratitude,
Sarah