They seem like an undervalued food (and apparently water pipe??) plant that is also beautiful.
Once I tasted one and it was tasty. Gingery but mild. The next few I tasted weren’t good at all so I stopped tasting them.
From Wikipedia: They were used as a source of food by the indigenous peoples, and were both gathered in the wild and cultivated. The Aztecs used them to treat epilepsy,[8] and employed the long hollow stem of the Dahlia imperialis for water pipes.[9] The indigenous peoples variously identify the plants as “Chichipatl” (Toltecs) and “Acocotle” or “Cocoxochitl” (Aztecs). From Hernandez’s perception of Aztec, to Spanish, through various other translations, the word is “water cane”, “water pipe”, “water pipe flower”, “hollow stem flower” and “cane flower”. All these refer to the hollowness of the plants’ stem.
They grow easy from seed for me too and I save seeds hoping for surprise mixtures. They tend to move towards the flat and short (under 2’) and away from the big expensive style bulbs. Slightly smaller bulbs the first year have been surviving storage and some give me flowers the first year. They’re all beauties.
I’m growing dahlias this year that I started from true seed. It’s from floret and is the bees choice mix I haven’t seen the tubers they produce yet. They are living up to their name, as they have been a great pollinator attractor.
Apparently dahlias have a photosensitivity compound in them. They are listed as toxic to most animals. It looks like digestive distress mostly. Lots of plants have photosensitive compounds but can be eaten in small amounts, just large amounts will cause problems.
I’m not sure about them now. I was planning on experimenting with them more as a crop for rabbits and/or pigs but that doesn’t seem likely to go well.
I’m going to try some in the herb/flower part of the garden but may not continue with them.
I love the ornamental frilly dahlias aesthetically but I didn’t like how the pollinators couldn’t use them, my favorite dahlia ended up being a seed grown dahlia someone else had past on so i planted it. Single white petals (last photo) with a big yellow sunshine in the middle, it was always coated with pollinators… it also survived in ground through the winter here on orcas island in Washington state, and perhaps because of the overwintering bloomed almost a full month before any other dahlias… I had about 30 seedling dahlias last year and here is my star specimen, an absolutely stunning frilly full globe with an open center the pollinators can enjoy!!
Been curious about edibility and experimenting with the seeds selected for culinary use by trul love seeds… but for now i am just so happy to have something both myself and the pollinators can love!
(Blink blink blink blink.) Dahlia stems can be used as water pipes?
That’s very interesting. Seems like a nifty idea to grow your own irrigation pipes, instead of relying on plastic that will eventually degrade into microplastics in your soil.
I wonder, can bamboo be used the same way? Could other species? That’s really very intriguing.
I feel like it means straw not irrrigation? but yes bamboo works wonderful in Portugal one of the 150 year old botanical gardens irrigation was bamboo and concrete channels it was amazing!
And back to the topic of dahlias (grin), I bought a few from a nursery last year, and they didn’t survive my winter. But someone in a slightly colder growing zone than me recently mentioned that they’ve grown them successfully, so . . . if I can remember who it was and whether I talked to them online or in person, maybe I can get some seeds!
There’s a lot of people selecting for overwintering dahlias now, usually i do a lump of hay on top of mine, though the one i saved seed from wasn’t covered at all… the biggest thing with dahlias dying out is being to Saturated in the freezes of winter.. not sure if this is a problem for you in Utah? The avaerage advice for planting a dahlia tuber is 9 inches deep, if the soil is soggy 9 inches down this wont do, I plant my dahlias much higher, really just under the surface and have wonderful success, though the mulching is imporant and ive lost varieites this way too, but i figure thats okay i want the strong ones!! I would plant it in my most protected location maybe next to a hoop or wall! I would highly encourage seedling dahlias, even if they dont survive ( and i bet one would) its such and absolute joy every flowering being different!!
Heres some more of the seedlings i got… hope you find some localism seeds!
Ahhhh. Yes, soil saturation is definitely what killed my cannas (and my hardy gingers, and my hardy bananas ), so if dahlias are sensitive to root rot in winter the same way, that is probably what did it.
So it sounds like I probably need to plant them on a berm, or in a pot, in order to keep them drier in the summer, just like everything in the Zingiberales family.
In answer to your wondering, yep, our soil gets quite soggy in winter. Not all the time – we often go a week or two without rain in the winter. Sometimes even three or four weeks. But then we’ll get a week that steadily pours down 4 inches of rain. Or snow, but the snow usually melts within 24 hours. So while we have some rainless periods in the winter, the soil is always moist, and it can stay soggy for weeks in a row.
I have seedlings from truelove seeds culinary dahlia mix. I’m dragging my feet on planting them out & wondering if I should put them in grow bags so I can move them around when I see how much sun they like.
But someone in a slightly colder growing zone than me recently mentioned that they’ve grown them successfully, so . . . if I can remember who it was and whether I talked to them online or in person, maybe I can get some seeds! 
), so if dahlias are sensitive to root rot in winter the same way, that is probably what did it.