Dahlias ...when to lift!

Just as the title says really.
I'm not good....in fact completely hopeless it seems at storing bulbs/ tubers/ corms.
Last year I chanced it and left them in situ and all came up except one.
I now have a couple that have outgrown their space and require moving....so 2 questions please.

1...Do you have to wait for the 1st frost to blackened them or can they be successfully lifted before then?

2... Could they be replanted straightaway into their new space now...or to attempt storing them and rehome them in Spring?

Thanks lovely people.

 

Difficult question, just guessing but I would move and possibly divide next spring.

 

Ah OK, didn't think of that option...thanks @pete

 

I lift mine when it's time to put in tulips and winter bedding. Frosts are so unpredictable that I just go with what's convenient. So far the tubers have done well year after year.

Leaving them in doesn't work here as the slugs destroy young shoots when they finally appear- and any survivors are a month behind overwintered and mollycoddled ones.

Now Upsy, let's have a pact and LABEL the things this year. Challenge you!

 

Thanks @Selleri ....when the rain eases enough to make a dash to the greenhouse I will take a pic...........be prepared to be utterly amazed!!!! Bring it on....I love a challenge!!

The only trouble I find is that the pesky labels have a will of their own and and ALL end up going on walkabouts!!

 

I have had the same plants for years and they are easy to grow but you have to do a little work. I lifted mine last week, chopped off some of the old top growth and placed them in a cool frost proof shed under benches, loosely covered with newspapers. They are in groups according to colour and labelled. They will dry out during the winter months. Early spring I plant them into pots in the cold frame or greenhouse and wait. After a week or two green shoots will appear. You can cut a shoot from the parent plant but also taking a small part of the parent plant, pot these on to become perfect new plants. Large plants can be divided at this time to increase stock this way is very easy using a sharp large knife. Plant out after frosts have gone. Bees love Dahlias.

 

Thanks @hans , some of our Dahlias have actually be successfully overwintered in their pots, even one outside, but only because I had forgotten about them. The times that I have lifted and attempted storing them have be complete failures....!!

My main concern was what to do with 3 huge ones that need moving as I mentioned in my starting post.

I have always had Dahlias in the garden and being down south seems to allow for them to be able to stay in situ during the winter. The 3 big ones I would be sad to loose but they just can't be left where there are now.

So to lift and replant now or to lift and replant later is the big question really.

 

OK @Selleri .....let's nail this once and for all!!Lazy Labellers Anonymous!

 

I lift mine in the first or second week of November @Upsydaisy - we're relatively mild in Bristol, some years we don't get more than two or three proper frosts all winter, and usually not until January. I store them in shoeboxes packed with sawdust in a dry basement and (touch wood) have only lost a couple, both of which looked pretty dicey going in.

 

Thanks @2nd_bassoon ......so you keep yours in the dark do you?

 

You are on, Upsy- shall we share our trials and triumphs through the season and give peer support? Biscuits?

I... feel... I belong

 

Most definitely @Selleri :bigthumb:

 

Did you click on my link.....if you did then I hope you're ' impressed, have to admit I am !!!

 

Yep, I didn't have a windowed shed or greenhouse in the last garden and the basement there was reliably cool and dry, so I chanced it and never found it to be an issue; I usually bought them out in late March/early April and potted them up in the coldframe for a few weeks before planting out. The new house will have both shed and greenhouse eventually but not yet, so for this winter at least it'll be basement again.