{"id":5652,"date":"2025-12-02T11:59:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T15:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/?p=5652"},"modified":"2025-12-02T11:59:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T15:59:20","slug":"dahlias-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/?p=5652","title":{"rendered":"Dahlias"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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White dahlia, not sure what variety, possibly \u201cSnow cap\u201d <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I did terrible with storing dahlias last winter. I only had three surviving, sprouting tubers \u2013 a dwarf variety, a white one (pictured above) and a purple one. All the other ones were shriveled and\/or rotted. I am pretty sure I dug them up too soon and also neglected to take good care of them over the winter. Plus, our basement is too warm. This time, I want to make sure I divide them correctly and store them properly. We had a \u201ckilling\u201d frost on November 18, so the foliage of the dahlias started to turn black. I cut down the stalks to about 4 to 5 inches and left them in the soil for a few days so the tubers could cure a little. I then dug them up (on November 30), rinsed the soil off the tubers and let them dry for two days (one day would have been enough).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cleaned and drying tubers, I had labeled each of them with a twist tie<\/em> when I dug them up<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today, I divided them. I made sure, each piece was intact and had at least one \u201ceye\u201d. I discarded the \u201cmother tuber\u201d. With a Sharpie, I put a number on each tuber that corresponded to the number on the twist tie: 1 for the dwarf variety, 2 for the white dahlia and 3 for the purple one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I then dusted them in sulfur powder to prevent fungal disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tubers all dusted in sulfur<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then, the tubers were wrapped in plastic wrap. Not the most environmentally friendly way, but a dahlia expert I spoke to swears by it. Plus, my previous system of storing them in a box filled with vermiculite and spritzing them with water every once in a while did not work last year, so I am trying something new. I wrapped them in packages of three to four tubers making sure each individual tuber was fully wrapped. This way, I am saving plastic wrap, but I can still inspect each individual tuber for rot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ready for storage<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The wrapped tubers will be stored in the back hallway, the coolest spot in the house (the basement is too warm), and I will check on them every two to four weeks. Fingers crossed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I did terrible with storing dahlias last winter. I only had three surviving, sprouting tubers \u2013 a dwarf variety, a white one (pictured above) and a purple one. All the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,37,33,31,22,51,6,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-decorating","category-disease","category-fall","category-flowers","category-in-the-garden","category-preserving","category-techniques","category-winter"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7mi2j-1ta","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5652"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5693,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5652\/revisions\/5693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}