Thank you Frank for the timely advice! My plan is to dig up my dahlias next weekend. I have never washed mine. I just shake off what dirt I can, let them dry out for a day and then tossed them whole in paper bags. I usually store in my crawl space. Last year when I pulled the bags out from the crawl space the paper bags were covered in green mildew. Most of the tubers seemed to be ok. I had never divided them before and tried to do it in the spring. It was difficult but I kind of figured out how to do it. I did something different this year and started them in pots in a south facing window rather than planting the tubers directly in the ground. It didn't seem to make a difference as far as bloom time.
My dahlias did not do well this year for the most part. I did get some nice blooms. But several rotted in the ground when we had those couple of weeks of so much rain. Many others only grew to a foot or two and never set buds. I am still going to did those up and save them. Hopefully they will do better next year.
I usually just buy my dahlias from Costco. But this year I bought six dahlias from Old House Gardens. They were pricey. But I had always heard good things about them. Well, two rotted in the ground, one finally just made it to a foot tall. Two bloomed just fine. The fifth one bloomed but was not as pictured. It was like a single with the ugly center. No more expensive dahlias for me!
