Can i separate dahlia tubers

To get started you will want a clean workspace, a good pair of garden scissors, cinnamon, and bleach. Your one dahlia tuber from last spring has likely produced additional tubers. Most of my dahlias produce between new tubers each season some varieties produce more than others. When you divide the tubers, it is important that each tuber has part of the original tuber stock along with a neck, body and eye. Without these parts, you will not be able to grow a new dahlia plant.

I like to start by dividing my tuber clump in half. This allows me to get in and divide the tuber clump into individual tubers. To see this process, be sure to watch the YouTube video below as I show you how i divide a clump of tubers. Dip the cut portion in cinnamon as this helps to prevent any bacterial or fungal growth.

Then I place my tubers in the container with the eye face up. Once you have a layer full, cover it in vermiculite and repeat. Your plastic bins should be stored in an area that has temperatures between degrees. You do not want your tubers to freeze. You should periodically check on your dahlia tubers over the winter. Check for any signs of mold or rot. If you find any, immediately remove those tubers from the container.

I know that all of this seems like a lot of work and effort. The best way to increase your stock is to store and divide your tubers each year. Be sure to grab your FREE checklist below with tips for storing and dividing your dahlia tubers. You can also help by pinning this post to Pinterest. Happy Gardening! The Flowering Farmhouse is excited to be offering some of our favorite dahlia varieties for sale in our online store! We have been growing dahlias since and are excited to share our dahlia tubers with you!

We are licensed and inspected by the State of Oregon Department of Agriculture. We carefully inspect and cull for any disease. We take this very seriously and provide only the best tubers for sale.

Almost 30 varieties of dahlia tubers will be for sale at the Flowering Farmhouse. Online orders are expected to open up in early Dahlia tubers will begin shipping in April when temperatures are warm enough to safely ship.

You may notice that not all varieties are available when our store opens. We are holding back some varieties until we have had a chance to inspect them over winter. We will be continually updating our dahlia stock through the middle of spring.

Be sure to subscribe to our e-newsletter to be among the first to know when our dahlia tubers are available for sale. New gardener alert. I grew dahlias 2 summers in a row and this was my first year digging them up to divide Seattle- zone 8b and your blog and videos helped me so much!

Finding the eye is hard. Dig up and throw into the trash any plants that were weak during the growing season or that produced inferior blooms. If any plants had signs of virus that could affect plant or bloom performance send them to the local landfill or incinerator. Before frost, be certain to have correct cultivar names attached to each stake, and be certain that the labels are easy to read not badly faded. The longer the tubers are in the ground curing, the more fully developed the tubers and the better the likelihood of their keeping over the winter.

While one can start digging before frost or before the rainy season along the Pacific Coast and may need to do so if his garden runs to thousands of plants , small growers should seriously consider letting their dahlia roots continue to grow and mature as long as practical.

Most areas have a light frost that ruins partially opened blooms and top foliage followed by a hard freeze that may be a few weeks later.

Dahlias continue to grow and the roots continue to mature after light frosts, and they may continue to grow after the first killing freeze depending on how deep the freeze affects the soil. If one cuts a few days before digging, the eyes tend to come out, so the clumps are easier to divide accurately.

However, if water gets into the stem, it can promote crown rot and ruin the tubers. Moreover, if one uses the same tool to cut all the stalks and leaves the plants in the ground, the tool could spread virus from one plant to another. To avoid spreading virus, dip cutting tools in a solution of one part bleach to ten parts of water before switching between one plant and the next. See the ADS virus research reports for alternative solutions or sprays that kill virus on tools and on human hands.

Growers who cut the stalks a few days early should cover the open stalk with aluminum foil to minimize any water going down to the crown. After the first frost, the stems always seem to have plenty of water in them, so some water there is unavoidable.

Leave enough stem at least a few inches to facilitate handling the clumps easily. As soon as one cuts off the tops, an opportunity arises for the variety name to become separated from the clump. Carefully keep the tag with the proper clump at all times until finishing marking the individual tubers.

Unmarked tubers variety unknown are worth a lot less than marked ones. In addition to the variety name, carefully indicate the best plants — propagate from the best, not the worst stock.

Dig and handle the clumps with care. To remove the clumps, dig on all four sides of the plant, about a foot away from the main stalk. When all four sides are loose from longer feeder roots, push the shovel or tined fork under the clump and lift carefully. Carefully remove any large clumps of dirt and turn the clump upside down to drain out any water in the stem. If one digs in the morning and leaves the clumps out for a couple of hours, the tubers will be much less fragile.

After a couple of hours, one can remove the dirt with less opportunity of breaking fragile tubers. When ready to clean the clump, use a garden hose to wash away as much dirt as possible. Dirt contains microorganisms, so one wants to remove the dirt before storing the divisions. At this time, the clump is ready for cutting. Cutting clumps presents another tradeoff. It is much easier to divide roots in the fall some varieties become so hard over the winter that one would need a power saw to separate them in the spring , but it is correspondingly harder to find the eyes before they start to sprout.

Many growers divide their roots in the fall. Gardeners generally have more time in the fall than spring, and it is easier to remove dirt from and apply fungicide to divisions than to clumps. Growers uncertain about finding the eyes can cut off the tops several days before planning to dig so the eyes will have time to become more visible. Alternatively, just cut — some divisions will have eyes.

Another suggestion for varieties whose roots are difficult to keep is to grow the plants in pots. Keep a rooted cutting or tuber in a 4 inch pot, plant the pot so the top is about an inch below the ground, and then treat the plant the same as any other dahlia in the garden.

Because of the inch of soil above the pot, the feeder roots will come above the pot. However, the roots form and keep better if confined this way — even if one treats the plant like a show dahlia and not like a pot root.

Roots grown in pots are often smaller than roots grown in the open, especially since growers generally select varieties that are poor root makers to grow in pots. To harvest tubers in pots, cut off all but the top inch or two of stalk and dig up the pot. Cut away any hair-like roots that extend from the pots. One may shorten thick tubers that extend from the pot. One method to treat potroots is to remove them from the pot.

If the clump is pot bound, break the pot to get the clump out. Wash, remove hair roots, let the clump dry for a day or two, and store in a bag with vermiculite. Alternatively, one may leave the potroots in the pots, place the name tag in the pot, and wrap the entire pot in half a dozen sheets of newspaper. Place the wrapped pots in brown grocery bags and store them with other tubers.

In the spring, remove the pot and start watering. After a few weeks, one may take cuttings or after the eyes develop shoots unpot the roots, separate them, repot, and start the sections as individual plants. In dividing clumps, each division must have a piece of the crown with an eye. Remove all of the stem, because any remaining tends to promote crown rot and ruin the tuber. One finding from the ADS virus research project is that cutting tools will spread virus from one plant or clump to other tubers and ruin more of the stock.

A solution of one part bleach to ten parts of water is the lowest cost effective treatment to kill dahlia virus on cutting tools and human hands. A few decades ago, experienced growers recommended sterilizing cutting tools with fire — heating the blades over a flame until red hot and letting the blades cool before reusing them. One can use hook-shaped carpet knives inexpensive from a hardware store and rotate several knives to economize on time spent waiting for individual knives to cool after sterilizing them.

While cutting the clumps, carefully inspect the divisions. With poor feeder roots, the result is poorquality plants and tubers. Carefully examine the clump, and cut it into sections that include one or more tuberous nodules and at least one eye.

The center root structure is the "mother" clump, and this is normally discarded. Inspect each of the sections you have cut away, looking for soft or damaged areas. Cut these away with a sharp pruner or knife; also remove the tiny feeder roots extending out from the nodule. Treat the cut edges of the roots with a fungicide powder. Allow the sections to dry out slightly in open air before storing.

When the skins of the tubers just start to wrinkle, they are ready to be stored. Place the root pieces in a mesh bag, or wrap them in newspapers and place them in a cardboard box. Store the roots somewhere cool, dark, and sheltered. Many growers prefer to add in a handful of vermiculite or peat moss with each root clump to stabilize the moisture during storage.

A temperature between 32 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal for storing dahlia roots. Allow them to get good air circulation, which will help to prevent rot. Over the winter, periodically inspect the roots.

If any develop mold or rot, discard the affected roots. If the roots begin to send out vigorous growth shoots this can happen in late winter , it's best to plant them in pots immediately and grow them by a sunny window.

Then, transplant them into the garden once the weather warms and all danger of frost has passed. Some varieties of dahlia do not react very well to winter storage, and even in the best circumstances, you can expect to lose some of your roots to rot or desiccation over the winter. This is normal and not a reflection on your efforts—even the most accomplished gardeners experience some failures when trying to store dahlia roots over the winter.

Whether it's into indoor nursery pots in late winter or into the garden in spring, dahlia roots should be planted 4 to 6 inches deep. Lay the tuber horizontally with the eyes or new green shoots facing up. Loosely pack soil over them, and water lightly each day until shoots emerge from the soil. Avoid letting the soil dry out completely, but also avoid saturating it. Once ample above-ground growth is present, weekly watering should be sufficient.

Tall dahlias will need to be staked, and you can anchor this stake at the time of planting. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data.

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