Now will you plant all those next year in your garden? The experiment is wonderful to see. Keep us informed.

Thanks, Russ. Great shots.

The first few are good for most gardeners who want to put their tubers to sleep. ... getting rid of the rat tails and small useless tubers, and still showing the stem section where we find the eyes. Well done.

Your experiment is going to be interesting. I am wondering if the plant will be missing its rest period. Hence I am wondering how it will perform next year, when they go out to the garden.

Keep us informed. This is how we all learn from each others' successes and failures. Believe me, I have had my fair share of failures ... and then some. LOL

pdshop,

I have planted 2 more tubers than I need plants in my garden for next year. As I mentioned before, I'm still leary about my ability to cut tubers from clumps and know I've got a tuber that will produce. This year I will learn whether I know how to cut, or, my storage methods sucked last year...;-]

Jroot,

I was thinking of you as I did this work. I had entire clumps with your name on...but I found that in trying to get enough viable tubers I had to go through more clumps than I thought I would. My goal for next year is 4 plants of each variety...but I'd really like them to all sprout around the same time, as opposed to 4 cuttings from one tuber. It meant I ended up cutting up all my Bride to Be, Citron De Cap, etc... to get enough viable tubers...sorry.

To all,

FWIW, I hope that as soon as a tuber sprouts I will transfer it from the propagating tray to a 4" pot. I hope I will be able to do this without cutting too many roots...my belief is that they will sprout from the tuber and not from roots spawned by the tuber.

My 2009 garden design has, for the most part, 4 of every variety I want (including Wyn's, which I won't receive until late March.)

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Lake Side, 4 beds around a pond

There's 57 spots on the Lake side and my spreadsheet lets me replace any flower with any other. I try to use the spreadsheet to figure out what colors will be beside another.

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Roadside

The roadside is "all that's left"...so my "design" is simply A-Z...;-]

Cheers,
Russ

You seem to have done a good job at cutting your tubers. My tubers are much better this year compared to last year so far. The weather here has warmed up so I have lots of time to get them out of the ground. So I take it you are going to only plant 4 of each veriaty even though you get 16 of one type? That would kill me. I have asked my neighbor to if I can use their roto tiller to make more gardens for next year. I expect to have 4 times as many plants as I had last year.

Viking,

I only kept a few clumps of each variety, enough to get me 6 or so viable tubers (I basically gave myself 2 tubers more than I need for each variety.) By far the majority of clumps were given to a friend who helps me in the garden...he does landscaping so the extra plants will go into gardens he does next year (plus his own.)

All excess tubers I had were thrown away...I simply have no more garden space I want to have occupied by Dahlias.

I dropped 9 varieties that either didn't give me sprouts in the spring (so never got planted) or didn't bloom this year. I dropped another 4 varieties that did bloom, but I've decided I don't like. To this I'm adding 7 varieties from Wyn's collection, giving me a total of 183 plants of 42 varieties for next year.

That's enough for me, but I think its great that you're going to expand your gardens.

Cheers,
Russ

Wow. That is a very ambitious plan for next year.

Too bad the trade won't work out, but I understand. Some of mine did not do as well as expected. I will put "yours" back into the box of "mine".

Hollly molly Russ! That's a very professional-looking light box rig. I recall your earlier post about this and am wondering which lights you ended up using and what type of reflective material for the sides of the box?

Also, may I assume you are planting your tubers vertically so you can get more tubers sprouting per flat? Do you plant them in the ground the same way because I would think the sprouts would also be vertical by then.

BTW--love the purple Taiheijo.

Lucinda

Russ, are yours sprouting again? Some of the ones I started from seed were spectacular and I don't want to loose them over the winter.

Russ and Viking, you sure are ambitious in your planning, building, and reproducing of dahlias. I'm wondering what your plan is to handle a dahlia that's 2-3 ft tall in the dead of winter. Will you try to give them enough light to bloom? Or stop them somehow to keep them shorter to be planted in early spring?

It will be fun to watch your efforts progress. It's always a long several months from storage to rebirth out here, so I'll be glad to see any and all success you find.

I'm about ready to hire either or both of you to remodel our bathrooms LOL!

misslucinda,

I went with 4 x 4' T5 bulbs in each box. I lined the inside of each box with 2mm mylar reflective film. I also made reflectors directly around each light using the film to simulate a "W" to drive light down to the tubers.

Tubers are planted pointy end down to, as you say, maximize the planting area. From them I'd take cuttings or simply transfer the tuber into a 4" pot once sprouted. If you lay a tuber with a vertically growing sprout on its side, the sprout will turn.

gladzoe,

Very few have sprouted as of today, maybe 2%. I am very disappointed with myself as I left them for a week once I'd planted them, without additional water. Right now a lot of the tubers have a very shrivled look to them, particularly those with very thin necks. I'm worried I may have killed them by not providing sufficient water (including spritzing them to keep the outter surface moist.) Time will tell.

poochella,

My plan was to move larger plants into my sunroom in early spring. They wouldn't get enough light there to bloom, but I would keep them trimmed back if they started to get too spindly.

At this point I'm really uncertain I will get many of them to actually sprout...;-[

Cheers,
Russ

I think I got this idea here. Russ take those tubers out and put them under hot water on the tip. Then every day sprits them with water. I had a tuber that the cats knocked off the shelf. I found it in august when cleaning the area. The soil was like a rock around it. But it started growing from the light that was on for me to clean. Now the plant is a foot tall.

This is from Jroot's post. It is something I always did with seeds,but never tried with tubers. This just may help you. ) No, I don't wash them in the spring. I just lay them on some of the potting mix,;and then sprinkle some more to slightly cover most of them; moisten them SLIGHTLY; put a plastic dome on top of them with air holes ( or a recycled plastic dry cleaning bag with an air space between the plastic and the tubers )place them under lights ( or in a window); and watch them sprout. :)

FWIW, I didn't take them out and soak them as you suggested Viking, I felt that would probably break any roots that they may have formed.

Today I have sprouts on 41 of my 215 tubers, plus a few that have more than one sprout. I've decided to wait a full 6 weeks before I try anything other than what I'm already doing.

I am spritzing them every day, with the lights on now for 15 hours (I just upped that today from 14 hours.)

Meanwhile, the Purple Taiheijo and Tahiti Sunrise that I brought in growing...have both died. They both showed a fine white powdery substance on the leaves. I've removed them from the house, so hopefully its nothing that will spread to the tuber sprouts (none are showing any sign of it.)

Shame...

Finally, the Sandia Joy which I brought in after lifting it from the ground; which I subsequently cut back to 3" long stems...its sprouting all over the place. There must be 15 stalks on it, many that are 8"+. I will prune it back soon, taking the cuttings as new plants given my Sandia Joy tubers haven't shown any life yet.

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Sandia Joy - BBWL: 4" diameter flower on a 24" bush.

So, you win some, you lose some...;-]

Cheers,
Russ

Hey Viking, here's an update with some pictures.

While this tray happens to be running over with sprouting tubers, its not representative of the other 3 trays. They, unfortunately, are pretty stubborn despite being under the same type of lights. There's nothing to explain the difference other than the varieties I suppose. Same light, same water, same soil...???

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Tray full of tubers

Here's 15 cuttings, plus 3 Park Princess tubers up front. The early sprouts come from Chrichton Honey, Gitts Perfection, I'm a Hottie, Lavender Ruffles, and Sherwood's Peach. That's just under a month for these sprouts to get large enough to be cut, pretty impressive.

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My first cuttings for 2009

I'm still really concerned that more than a few varieties aren't going to give me any sprouts.

Cheers,
Russ

Thanks for keeping us informed Russ. Your garden is the winter story. I intend to try and start my tubers next month. Do not be to concerned about sprouting times. I had a couple of tubers that took almost three month under lights to sprout. I am glad Gitt's Perfection seems to be an early sprouter. I have an order for a full plant by the end of May. And for a garden plan up date, my daughter spotted two half barrels for planters. We picked them up along side of the road. They had been wine barrels at one time. One of the staves still had the tap hole in it.

Russ, I hope you have better luck than 2%. Wish they were easier to store. The ones in saran wrap in the fridge look to be shriveling.

My two faves that I stuck in a pot have a few sprouts but they are really slow. Not that my light set up is ideal either and I don't feel like spending more at this point.

Some I've been keeping alive in jars of water but they seem to get callused and then those turn brown without sending out roots. I might put them in promix and a little root stimulator. Two that I had in pots, that I thought might have froze, have sent up new sprouts which get no light and are a foot tall. I might cut them off and try and slip them. Powdery mildew is a problem with a few of mine, I bleached the leaves thinking it might stop it and they seem ok.

If none of this works my method might become to send my good ones to my friend in Oregon who never has to dig them up. She can then send me shoots when they become bush sized.

Hi Russ, how are your indoor babies doing?

Yea you are holding out on us. You probly have huge plants blooming all over the place. The local flower shop is calling you day and night for your blooms. It is just horiable.

I love your work sturgeonguy...very nicely done fella

Mick