3,226 Garden Web Discussions | Dahlias
Mother may be used to doing it the old way with peat moss, which I find dries them out. If you are getting 80 % making it through, that is probably better than "mother's", but I am not mother so I'm therefore not sure what her success rate is.
The only thing I would do other than what you are doing is use a bulb dust ( fungicide ) on them. Then put the tubers in the bags ( loosely wrapped ) into a cardboard box, and place it in a cool place for the winter. Don't let it freeze.
JRoot,
Yes, mom always uses peat moss. LOL.
Thank you for your helpful advice I will use the same method as I did last year.
Put some bulb dust on them and put them in the basement in a dark spot. OH, and I use grocery bags as well to keep them separated.
Thanks Again
The reason you divide dahlia clumps each year- or at the least every other year is because the bigger the clump the less vigor the dahlia plant will have. A plant's mission in life is to reproduce & if it has a great big clump of tubers to live off of it won't try as hard to put out blooms. The stems will get weak & floppy & you'll get way less blooms. You are better off with a nice healthy tuber that puts out one nice fat sturdy stem with many laterals than you are with a spindly plant with a lot of stems that are all weak. Also- the size of the tuber doesn't really matter- a small one puts out just as nice a plant as a huge one does. Look at our photo albums- each one of these plants is grown from a single tuber- notice the vigor & the amount of branching from just one bigger-than-a-broomsitck stalk
Here is a link that might be useful: photos of dahlias
Forgot about these pictures. You can see Hilltop Stella growing in the trial garden in 2007 and on the bench in Chicago in the DS of GA August 2007 newsletter and the September 2007 newsletter, on the last page of each issue. Go to the DS of GA website and click on monthly newsletters and then select the month and year. They are not the best shots but you can see it. It looks better in person.
Buddy Dean will have some good ones coming along as I saw a couple at the NC show this year and they are lovely. Don't know what year seedling they are though.
Here is a link that might be useful: Dahlia Society of Georgia
Well that is too much. I wonder why it just doesn't come up on it's own. Thanks for taking the time to see him. The other shots of the bird bath flowers seemed to come right up for you all? The dahlias are much blacker this morning. So, I leave them like that for a week and cut them off at the bottom and leave the tubers in for another week and than dig?
Hey thanks guys! No time to divide and I really can't see what is where now. spring is much easier and doing it this way is great. 1 clump/tuber per bag?
What exactly is bulb dust? a fungcide? I stopped in my local garden center and asked - they didn't really know and then told me to just pack them in peat moss!
jroot - that's west side of the state, I think. I'm about 1/2 hour from the ocean on the other side. :-D According to the chart, I should be zone 6.... but considering what I keep freezing here.....it's just easier to say zone 5.
Linda
linda02120,
Your questions:
1 clump/tuber per bag? It all depends on the size of the clump. I often put several into one bag.
What exactly is bulb dust? I am surprised that they didn't know what bulb dust is. Try a hardware store. It is a type of fungicide, and it does indeed stop the rot. To me, it is invaluable.
Their comment: Pack them in peat moss! Well, I will tell you that I have had the LEAST success with peat moss. I find it dries the tubers out. I will never use it again. However, you may have better luck. For me, the method I use works best. Even Bernie (Saran wrap guy) liked it.
You can store them right in the pots- trim the stems to a couple of inches, turn the pots on their side so any water can drain & circulation is better, stack them up & store in a cool dark place. When you want to restart them you can bring them out & let them sprout. Then do cuttings again from them. This is the way most dahlias are grown in the UK- they don't even use what they call "chicken legs" & we call tubers. Or in spring if you want you can take them out of the pot, cut them up & replant.
These are "pot tubers" & are what you generally get from the big box stores in a plastic bag with most of them broken off & not usable.
See my recent posting.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/dahlia/msg1008264021451.html?2
I keep a clump, or part of a clump together, and split in the spring. It works. Even Bernie, thought so. I do believe though the secret is the fungicide, or bulb dust. I rarely lose a tuber.
I thought the tuber might split the pot. Some of mine had 30 to 40 single tubers on them. They never would have stayed in a pot? Why do you want to do it that way? One tuber looks just like a big foot with a leg! I have no idea which is the stem and which is the leg so I don't know where to cut? It will take up alot of room if I plant it the way it is.
I did receive tubers from one company that were sliced in half. You can see the cut very well. So it will work.
You might be surprised pdshop, to learn that >90% of the Dahlias did no harm to their 4" pots. I was surprised it was so high.
I wanted to grow them in 4" pots in order to make it easier to lift them in the fall. My understanding was that the 4" pot would *keep* the clumps small...obviously that's not true.
Referring to that foot-like tuber, here it is cleaned up out of the pot:
I agree, I had a very difficult time splitting this tuber up...as I did with many of the tubers. In fact, I had so much trouble with them I have decided I won't be planting in 4" pots in the future. I will certainly get them started in 4" pots, and likely grow them in these pots until they're planted out into the gardens...but when they go in the ground I'll remove them from the pots.
My reason is simple, trying to divide such tight clumps yields fewer tubers and makes ensuring I have viable crown material on tubers more difficult. Even if I only want a couple of tubers, its still more difficult to do with tight clumps.
Cheers,
Russ
Want to know more about Over Wintering Dahlias? A lot more? The article below points to some of the best internet sources for information on digging, dividing and storing dahlias.
Here is a link that might be useful: OVER WINTERING DAHLIAS
Excellent link upwithdahlias. Pretty much covers all the bases known to date.