We had a lot of activity on the "could we have a dahlia forum?" thread, so it looks like we ought to have a forum dedicated to the plant! Enjoy.

Yay.

Great! Thanks so much.

Being the end of the season we can look back at our successes, disappointments and share our many photos.

Beautiful photo pirl!

It is beautiful. I don't have much success with Dahlias, but love them. Looking forward to photos.

This is very exciting!

Dave - for all you do, these buds are for you - watch them open one photo at a time!

Thanks!

I tried my first dahlias this year (Dahlia 'Electric Flash' from Home Depot. I must have let them dry out before getting around to planting them, because they never came up.

Try, try again!

Yes, we will all try again and again. I already ordered a few and I am looking forward to good advice! We have all winter to get organized but I need a game plan. I need to know about fertilizer, staking, digging and storing. I know we have talked about most of this but this time I will write it down, I promise!

Did everyone see this?

Storing Dahlias
By chucklasher7, November 30, 2013

Yes, he was sweet and I see everyone has their little technique but I do not believe plastic would work for me because it is so humid here and stuff rots easy.
I do like the idea of putting them into growers mix (mostly peat moss) and storing them in a box or something like that. I think the garage would be ok.

I wondered about the plastic, too. But it's workin for him!
Maybe a paper bag.

Well, I guess plastic would be ok if I had the right medium to soak up excess moisture. Should they be air tight? Can I use a zip loc bag?

Try it with some inexpensive ones. If it works, great. If not, the loss is limited.

The way I understand it is that you wrap them tight with saran wrap. That way you keep the moisture in but do now allow space for it to build up. The tubers should be dry when you wrap them.

maybe @chucklasher7 will find us and be able to answer our questions......

We should invite chuck to our new forum.

@pirl has a good technique. I need to keep a check on temps and humidity. Might be time to get a weather gauge. I do not want them to freeze.

I currently have mine in the garage because it is drier than the basement. But my thermometer is going too low out there So I guess I'm going to have to move them to the basement.

Wow, I opened this brand-new forum and it already has the feel of an old hat. Someone must have been very busy moving relevant threads over to this spot. Bravo.

I use plastic grocery store bags because the tubers do want some humidity or they'll start that awful shrinking process. I do not want the bag closed tight so they can breathe.

The eyes will obviously always be a mystery to me so I dig clumps, huge and small and each one gets the name on the bag as well as a label inside the bag. That way I'll be ready to plant when warm enough temperatures come along. With clumps there is no way to enclose the entire thing in Saran Wrap and people have had mixed results. It mostly depends on the condition of the tuber at the time it gets wrapped.

I do put a thermometer at the top of the bag but it's all covered with scatter rugs and a tarp. I check now and then, not on a regular basis.