Dahlias – Time to lift and store!

If you’ve been enticed by the absolutely gorgeous blooms of the dahlia family you will know that most of the larger varieties are sold in tubers and grown over summer.  These are more often than not imported for sale and are not always easy to find.  The bedding dahlias can be bought as seedlings or as seed from the nurseries.  Regardless of how the plant started and what variety it is, all of them will develop tubers which will be clones of the parent plant.  These plants will start dying back in Autumn ( which is March/April for us in Southern Africa) and it’s about now that you need to prepare these tubers for storage.  Here’s how to do it to ensure that you have healthy tubers ready to plant next spring.

Thanks to Fi Flanagan, Pete Rosenfels and Tasmin Worswick for the pictures

I have tried several methods of storage and have often lost some tubers due to withering so I spoke to Pete Rosenfels from Peter Piper who gave me some great tips that you can use too.

Now is when you should be reducing the water to your dahlia plants and allowing them to die back completely.  This is when they are ensuring all the nutrients from the plants are stored in the tubers.  Once they have died back, gently lift them out of the ground or pot and carefully remove as much soil as you can from the clump.  You can trim up the dead stalk but leave at least 15 cm of each stalk.  When it comes time to split and replant you will see that the eye of the tuber is located on the stalk so it is very important not to damage it.

Pete stores the clumps in recycled orange or potato sacks and hangs them in a dry dark place until August. I have tried storing in sand and also in vermiculite and have lost some precious tubers.  The  key is that they need to not be too dry and also not be too damp!

In our climate it is possible that they may be left in the ground especially if you have a garden that only receives rainfall.  It will mean that your tubers will probably wake up earlier and flower earlier.  It also means they will finish flowering earlier.

It is vital to label the clumps and Pete suggests doing that while there is still flower on the plant.  Once it dies back it is almost impossible to tell between the different ones.  His suggestion of a label is to use cut strips from strong black plastic and write on it with a paint pen.  These are available from Scripted at the Honeydew centre.

Stay tuned – Once August rolls around we will be writing an article and possibly even a workshop on how to split your tubers safely and also to take cuttings from the new shoots.

If you have any Dahlia tips and tricks that work for you please do share them so we can add to the article and have a full set of resources for all the new gardeners out there.