Amen to that, Dave! Sorry to hear about your struggle this spring.

Even really experienced growers have lost most their stock once or twice, but that doesn't help much when it happens to you. Two seasons ago, I lost three-quarters of my varieties in the unheated garage due to a deep freeze before thanksgiving. It did give me the excuse to try out lots of new varieties hadn't the room for the next season, but I sure did feel incompetent for losing them in the first place!

Ugh! Patience a virtue that, apparently, I don't possess! I just planted one tuber of a dinnerplate variety this week and three tubers of pompoms. I have done too much research and as a first time dahlia planter (and gardener) I am driving myself crazy!

I even gently dug them up this week. I do have some sprouts! Yay! On two they are still purplish red and on two they look like they might be forming their first set of leaves! I am just so impatient. I have talked, sung, and begged them to do something!

*this gonna be a long summer*

I have seen where you leavena bit of the tuber exposed so you can monitor the growth.

Then add soil as the sprout grows up. That is what I am doing. Am I better to "plant it and forget it?" They have been in the house the past couple of days and seem to be loving the warm house. We had snow and freezing temps here this weekend. The days are going to warm up again so I will let the babies have the sunshine again during the day.

two months after potting up, the last of the sad dog tubers from last year has budded. 11 sprouts so far-yay.

You could have stored them by cutting off those other stems, also.

I usually left my bulbs in-ground or in-pot for the winter, but about 2 years ago, we had a pretty late ice storm. A few days after the storm was over, I could see that my amaryllis bulbs took a beating. Some made it and most didn't. I waited at least 2 months to see the normal growth in the pots for the dahlias and lily bulbs, but they didn't. When I finally checked by digging up that dirt, there was no sign of the tubers and bulbs. They had been disintegrated. Even the larger amaryllis bulbs which looked OK above ground but weren't growing, had squishy bulb parts beneath the soil.

The funny thing is, that same spring, I found some dahlia tubers that had been in the house, which I got on clearance in the previous late summer. I apparently had forgotten about them. I potted them up and they actually grew and put out some great blooms. This year, they have returned, with growth better than last year.