[uppityradish]

Hello everyone..I've just joined    I planted quite a few dahlia tubers directly into the garden in mid-May and followed the instructions to the letter....including not watering (since all advice suggests this will rot them). However, only one has just started to put up shoots. I'm worried  ...should I water a bit at least (there's hardly been any rain at all here since planting)??

[snowdrops]

They should be fine, have a dig down to the same depth nearby & see how damp the soil is, might also be worth having a gentle root round where they are as slugs & snails are very partial to the new shoots & May be cropping them as they appear

[sunshineband]

Some of our dahlias popped up within a week, some are only just struggling with a small shoot, and they were all planted within a day or so of each other.


As Snowdrops said, slugs and snails do love dahlia shoots and sometimes chew them off below ground as they start to grow, which is infuriating, to say the least. You could always take the tubers up and replant in pots for the time being, then plant them out again once they are established into growth