Digging up the Dahlias

Many of the French leave their Dahlias in the ground all year round which if we have a mild winter is probably OK, I prefer to lift and store ours in a frost free place.

It is not a job I like doing BUT in saying that it is much easier here in France than it was in Lancashire due to the soil being sandier. The Lancashire clay used to stick to the tubers like s**t to a blanket!!

Anyway, today I braved the cold, it's only been 6ºC, and started to lift them... Sorry no picture of me at work, it was tooooo cold for Elizabeth to venture out!

Taken in October for ID purposes....

The same bed emptied today...

The next line yet to do, perhaps tomorrow! Some of these have been promised to friends...

A barrow full of all white and purple, I think!

Another set of mixed...

All awaiting ID labels...  Last year though, something went wrong, the labels did not match what came up... Human error? No way!

Their final storage boxes

They will not all fit, so J and N when you are over this way, perhaps you could take yours with you!! And G and T could you just pop back and collect yours (only joking!)

Dahlias - Splitting and Planting

It's that time of year again when a man's thoughts turn to what else but his dahlias! Lasts year we had a good display. See here.

The tubers have been stored in a cardboard box in the grenier over winter. When I opened them this morning all except one had survived. Unfortunately it was the large plain red one and it had for some reason just dried up and rotted!

Since we bought the original tubers last year they have grown sufficiently to divide so the first job has been splitting the tubers. It is a relatively easy process as shown below.

This one just pulled into two; some of the tougher ones required the intervention of the old carving knife.

Together with three new 'cheap' tubers from 'Lidl' they were soon ready for planting...

The Dahlias Bed now planted up ready for this summer's display.

As we had more tubers than the bed would hold, we have also planted some against the front wall in between the Leylandii stumps... Surprisingly everything we plant there grows very well. I hope these do the same!

Here's hoping we have no more frost...

Putting the Dahlias to bed.

The dahlias we planted back in April despite the earwig problem did extremely well. With the help of a decent insecticide spray the earwigs were kept at bay and the dahlias bloomed in late May and continued to give an excellent display until the first frost killed them at the end of October.

It was now time to cut back the tops and lift the tubers to keep in a frost free place until next spring. When we bought the tubers back in March they where the cheapest we could find and as such where just labelled as mixed. The tubers themselves were the size of a couple of fingers.

What a difference a season makes...

Given that I am no expert, in order to be able to identify which plant is which I produced little labels with a picture of the flower and tied them to each tuber. Next spring the larger tubers will be split to make three or four plants so we will be able to arrange the planting appropriately (perhaps).

So that's it, the tubers will be left to dry and then put to bed and kept warm for the winter..  A couple of years ago back in the UK we lost all our Dahlias due to the very cold winter and not keeping them frost free. Once bitten twice shy, these babies will be kept well wrapped up....