When dahlia season comes to an end, the monumental task of lifting dahlia tubers begins. Dahlias have become everyone’s favorite flower and for good reason-they multiply! Dahlia Tubers are a great way to increase your stock and increase the amount of flowers you grow.
Dahlia tubers need a minimum of 120 days in the ground to produce more tubers. We try to wait until after first frost to lift our tubers, but we’ve had success doing it before. I use a pitch fork to dig around the tuber mass. If you happen to pierce a tuber, do not worry. They are much like potatoes and will heal over.
When you dig, you will notice that the tubers from every variety look completely different. Some growers store their tubers with dirt on and divide in spring. We have clay soil and it tends to create rot in our tubers. We gently wash all the soil off of our tubers, cut the roots off, and let them dry outside in crates in average temperatures before we divide.
To divide, I look for an eye, a crown, an unbroken neck, and a body. These are the things required for a dahlia tuber to grow. I use a sharp pair of snips and sanitize in rubbing alcohol between each clump. I have also used a plunge cutter for tight clumps. Sometimes I cut a clump into individual tubers, half, or quarter the clump. Once I have a clump divided, we use a UV resistant sharpie to label the tuber and store in peat moss in a plastic storage container. We sandwich them in layers and can fit many into the container before storing in our crawl space. We have tried a variety of storage mediums and peat moss is the one that we have found works the best with minimal loss. Check your tubers in storage every week to ensure mold and rot doesn’t spread throughout your container.