Category: Dahlias

The dahlias are quite frost sensitive, so I was surprised to see this one last bloom as I was digging up the last of my dahlia tubers in the Cutting Garden.

Question from the mailbag (heirloomgardener[at]aol[dot]com): What winter storage “method” do you use for dahlias? I’ve experimented with several different ways and am still searing for the perfect solution.
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Answer from Heirloom Gardener: I’ve experimented with several different ways too. One year, I put the tubers in individual brown paper bags, wrote the names of the tubers on each bag, and then stored all of the bags in a large container of peat moss. By the spring, the brown paper bags had deteriorated and I had no idea which dahlias were which!
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Here’s what I did last fall which worked pretty well. After the first hard frost, I dug them up (a garden fork works better than a shovel), cleaned them off and dried them indoors on baking sheets in the sun for about two days. You want them to dry out, but you don’t want them to shrivel up. Next, I wrote the name of the dahlia on the actual tuber with a Sharpie marker. Then, I stored them in individual plastic containers with peat moss. I wrote the name of the dahlia on the outside of each container too. From there, they were stored in the unfinished part of the basement, which kept them cool, dry and dark until the spring.