Dave Gillam

A grower for 25 years, in 2012 Dave won National Individual Champion awards at each of the English (Shepton Mallet), Welsh and Sco ish National Dahlia Society competitions, the first time this has ever been accomplished. He’s very busy on YouTube, where you’ll find dozens of videos on how to grow dahlias.

A dahlia plant will continue to grow upwards until it produces a bud. This, in effect, is the plant’s way of stopping itself. If you wait for the plant to do it, you may well get one early flower, but the following flowers will be produced much later than you would like.

By stopping a plant you can make sure the plant produces its flowering stems from lower down in the plant, making it a more compact, strong and stable plant. You can, with some trial and error, control the flowering time of the plant for a show or special occasion.

Stopping is one thing that people new to growing dahlias find hard to bring themselves to do as they fear they'll damage the plant. Trust me, the worst that can happen is you hesitate too much and do it too late and your plant will then flower later than you would like.

Any time from early June to early July is fine and depends what stage your plant is at as far as when you can do it. As long as you're leaving three or four pairs of leaves on the plant, it's good to do it any time you can. Remember, the earlier you do it the sooner you'll have that display you have been hoping for!