I HAULED THE GARBAGE BAGS OF CANNAS and other tender bulb-like things from the cellar yesterday, where they’d slept quietly for months, to clean them up for action. Do you remember how to sound the wake-up call for cannas, callas, dahlias and other such tender things? This slideshow is a good step-by-step reminder. Remember how the process started last fall, at storage time, at the other end of the tender-bulb care cycle? That was all about storage; now I’m on to the “restorage” phase. Wake up, babies!
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Love how you don’t fuss too much over then and just “toss them in a bag”. I must say I have not had too much luck wintering over my tender bulbs, I’ll have to read your tips for storing and try it this year. Love how healthy looking the canna looks in the end.
Hopefully, I did the right thing and followed your step by step instructions with my cannas! Brought them up from the basement this past weekend, gingerly separated them and cut off the dry, dead parts, and potted them in temporary containers. To my surprise, a couple of shoots appeared (looks like tightly curled up leaves), although I accidentally broke one of them. They now sit on my glassed-in porch in the Berkshires awaiting my return in 10 more days. I’m hoping for a reward on that day!
I have cannas I left in the pot in an unheated shed all winter, the plastic pot was bulging at the sides from the rhizome, so I probably did a bad thing and took a shovel to it and divided the rhizome in two. hopefully it doesn’t catch a nasty shovel transmitted disease (STD). But both divisions have leaves sticking up. I think its still too cold to put them out overnight, but I have been bringing them out of the shed on warmer days and letting them get a little sun.
Welcome, Ben. No worry; these babies are tough. I chop them up, too. Sounds like you are doing just fine if there are leaves. :) See you soon again, I hope.
Help! My dahlia tubers sprouted shoots over the winter. Should I cut the shoots off before planting or try to plant them as is?
I don’t know with certainty, Anne, but my instinct is that they don’t have backup energy for producing more shoots, so I would plant the entire thing in large pots with potting soil now, if you cannot get into the garden. This is why many dahlia growers pre-pot things in March indoors, I guess. I don’t know if they will outgrow this extra-early effort or be sapped by it.