Temperatures have been teasing many areas with the possibility of frost, so it's time to start thinking about storing your tender bulbs for winter. Gardeners in USDA zones 8 and above can grow dahlias, cannas, caladiums and their tender cousins year round. Although the leaves may get damaged in a cold snap, the plants should survive and regrow.
Northern gardeners are not so lucky. They will need to dig and store these plants to overwinter them, but the payoff is well worth the effort. While there are no absolute rules for overwintering tender bulbs, corms, rhizomes and tubers, here are some guidelines and safeguards to make your efforts more successful. Better still, here's a video to show you how.
Photo: © Marie Iannotti
Comments
hi and thanks for the ripening tomatoes tips. Unfortunately though, as soon as I got them indoors, they started to go off as soon as you’d look at them…twice a day I had to get rid of a few, add they started to go brown, spotted and some mouldy even…so had to make chutney quick smart….
Hope that next year the weather will be better, so that they can ripen…I won’t give up!
One Q: had some lovely begonias, the corms survived in the pots last winter, on their side, more by accident than anything though… Now some are still flowering, but won’t be long now before the first frost….
What do you advice I should do to ensure they survive again?
Many thanks, Cristina
I’m glad you’re not discouraged about ripening tomatoes, yet. The chutney was a good idea.
I think your tomatoes were probably already infected with some type of fungal disease, it just hadn’t started showing symptoms yet. Sometimes the problem speeds up in a warm house.
Bedding begonias and those with rhizomes never actually go dormant and can be brought indoors as house plants. They would need bright light and regular water, as well as a little diluted food once a month.
Here in Texas, we have to store some bulbs, like the calladiums you have shown. Plus we also have to dig and store some bulbs over the summer because they can’t take the heat! But you are correct, cannas, irises, and elephant ears among others bounce back year after year!
That’s an interesting point. In cooler climates, we have trouble with spring bulbs staying too damp, when they are supposed to be dormant during the summer. Which ones do you store?