Tuber Sale Policies & Info

Prices listed are for one dahlia tuber unless they are labeled "Variety Name (5-count)". 

We are located in central Iowa and will begin shipping late March through early April, subject to the wonderful weather whims of Mother Nature. We use USPS and you will receive a tracking number as soon as your tubers are ready to ship.

Shipping costs for 2025:

• 1-6 tubers: $12
• 7-14 tubers: $20
• 15+ tubers: $28
• Free shipping on orders over $150

Combined shipping: We are experimenting with trying combined shipping this year. Please use the code “COMBINE25” on your second (or third, or fourth… we know how it goes) order.

Local pick-up: For our local dahlia friends who would like to pick up tubers in Ames, please use the code “LOCALS25” to avoid the automatically calculated shipping costs.

We love reducing waste so you might find your tubers delivered in a re-used Amazon box! You might also find your tubers protected by bubble wrap or newspaper or any number of surprise packaging materials. Rest assured, they will be shipped safely and securely.

Please take a moment to check your tubers when they arrive. We do our absolute best to send out high-quality tubers, so if something seems “off” when you open your box please reach out and let us know. 

We offer refunds if a tuber doesn’t produce an eye. However, we can’t provide refunds for tubers that rot or fail to thrive once they are planted. So much of a dahlia’s success depends on your individual growing conditions. 

Additionally, we can’t refund dahlias that show signs of a virus or disease during your growing season because there is no way to tell at what point the plant became infected. You’re more than welcome to share information with us if a dahlia we sent you tested positive during your growing season. That way, we can double-check our stock and collectively work to maximize the amount of clean dahlia stock in circulation. Thank you for understanding, and happy growing!

If you’re new to the discussion of dahlia viruses, let’s get the bad news out of the way first: most of the industry’s collective stock will test positive for at least one virus. The American Dahlia Society (ADS) and Washington State University (WSU) have been hard at work for many years studying viruses in dahlias and we now know much more than we did before.

The good news? The ADS & WSU research gives us some pretty good clues on how to reduce the spread of viruses in our dahlias. The most recent set of best-practices is to:

• Sanitize your snips and tools between plants (we use a 10% bleach solution)
• If in doubt, throw it out (and begin learning how to discern between nutrient deficiencies and virus symptoms)
• Manage thrips to the best of your ability (those little stinkers are responsible for much of the spread – and not just between dahlias). We use a combination of beneficial insects and nematodes to target the various stages of thrips' lifecycles.
• Isolate new stock

It’s also worth noting that many dahlia plants with viruses are asymptomatic. The only way to be certain you have a diseased plant is to have it tested (which is quite expensive).

Helpful resources for your learning journey:

Virus in Dahlias, lecture by Dr. Hanu Pappu (WSU)

The American Dahlia Society’s Virus Documentation Index (it lists, by year, all of their publications and findings)