blown_dry I have developed an anxiety about planting things specifically,
I can’t even imagine how frustrating that must be. 
General Dahlia Chat 2023
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Way back when we were discussing Fidalgo varieties, and Ted gave us that wonderful history of the Fidalgo breeders, I got to thinking of a dahlia farm that was near Burlington WA, along highway 20 that grew a lot of Fidalgo varieties. @Teddahlia, could that have been the Matthies' farm? I wonder if you would remember the name of the owner/grower on that farm, if not - it was at least 30 yrs ago. That was the first place I ever bought tubers. We would visit his fields in Sept or Oct. - you just HAD to stop, it was so spectacular and right on the highway! One time in late Sept while they were still digging, I found two extra abandoned mystery tubers on the ground after they dug those rows, and picked them up. That is how I got Holly Huston and Encore. He always took the time to talk with us or walk the fields with us, and he loved his dahlias. I was sorry to see that place go. Later I learned that he had passed; he was a wonderful guy (as was Lou Eckhoff of Seatac dahlias - I remember spending a long time in his seedling rows with him; his pride and joy. I can see why so many of you love the breeding part!)
I grew Fidalgo Knight which was a beauty; also Fidalgo Splash - no two flowers were alike in their distribution of coloration - and I loved the B size flower. I love WhoDunIt too - it's smaller and more uniform, yet still beautiful. I miss Fidalgo Splash, though, and that farm. He also had some Camano varieties. I wish I had kept those ancient order forms from him and from SeaTac now! Fond memories of these two growers I had the pleasure to meet - and his tubers were beautiful; they had some substance; not like those teeny wimpy little singles that people are selling online nowadays for big bucks - I guess in order to cut down on their shipping costs, which has risen so dramatically in recent years.
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"Lou Eckhoff of Seatac dahlias "He gave us a garden tour and I still remember tidbits of information. He said a Barbarry had a green center until it got fully ripe and it would go away. He also said some of the plants were from cuttings and bet we could not tell which ones. He showed us a seedling and he released it the next year, I think he called Texas Wild Thing.
I’ve just discovered that my phone now autocorrects any two-letter abbreviation that begins with an “H” to “HH”.
Apparently I need to pickup some Hollyhill eggs at the store. (Supposed to be “hb” for “hard-boiled”)
4 days later
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Poor @mr_blown_dry gets mistaken by search engines and algorithms as someone who wants to grow dahlias. He got a helpful link on how to overwinter dahlia tubers. I have never heard of the "hang them by their toes" method before.
I feel like this may be a silly question. I know there are plenty of people that store their tubers in plastic wrap, my dad asked me if they'd survive being vacuum sealed and I couldn't really answer the question.
I'm imagining they need a slight bit of oxygen but sometimes I feel like I don't know anything about growing dahlias and have pretty much lucked out so far (in the broader scope of dahlia growing anyway).
MissyWeitzel Ironically, Facebook keeps showing me an advertisement for seed pots that are open on the corners stating the same thing about the roots reaching the air and not getting root bound.
I think Honken tried the vacuum seal thing a few years ago and it was a dissater. MAybe he will chime in on it and tell you how that worked out. I am glad we share our not so good results as well as our bright ideas!
Not any sort of conclusive answer, but…
I tried out the plastic wrap storage method a little this year (I usually store in vermiculite). I had done a fall trade where some of the participants had plastic wrapped tubers so I went with it. My observation from my very small sample was that loosely wrapped tubers came out of storage looking like the day they went in, while tightly wrapped tubers had a few issues with moisture/rot. This seemed to have something to do with sprouts trying to grow inside the wrap. (I say this just because the timing corresponded with sprouts).
But it also could have been coincidence and those tubers just hadn’t dried enough prior to storage. Anyhow, I probably wouldn’t go the vacuum sealer route myself…
Wrapping tubers in plastic wrap: Vacuum sealing not a good idea. When wrapping tubers in plastic wrap there are several things to remember: The tubers should be more dry than those being stored by other methods. Some people wrap multiple tubers in the sheet making sure they are separated by wrap and create bundles of tubers. Whether you wrap individually or few at a time or a boat load there is one more step that is often omitted from the instructions. The tubers are supposed to be removed from the wrap BEFORE they get long sprouts. Usually, that is about six weeks before the planting date. This is a very important step. Our most successful "tuber wrapper' in our club has been "wrapping" for about 20 years now. When he did his demo for the club he emphasized the removal of the tubers step being especially important. By the way, tubers when removed are generally dormant and do not need the plastic wrap any more. Another thing that has to be resolved if you use plastic wrap is the labeling of tubers. If you write on all tubers(I quit 20 years ago) this is no issue. One way is to wrap varieties in their own package. However, if you do that, masking tape tends to rot and writing on it attached to a bundle may not work. I used plastic tags in the bundle. I like the plastic wrap method of storing tubers but do not do it as it is too time consuming for me.
Teddahlia I used plastic wrap this past season(my first saving tubers). I didn't know to expect 6 weeks for them to wake up! This is great info. That explains so much as to what this dahlia "waking up season" has been for me(a waiting game). I held off taking them out of storage because I was away on a 10 day vacation at the beginning of April. Now I know I should have unwrapped and let them at room temp before I left, so they would begin waking up in mid to late March.
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Reflexively I felt like vacuum sealing would end up being a terrible idea but try not to be too dismissive about things I don't know so it's nice to hear my instincts on that one were good.
I arrived home yesterday after an 8 day trip to find many sprouting tubers including some that I was trying to salvage from last season and lo & behold AC Fernando, River's Yellow Snow, & HH Red Warlock were just a few that decided to join this year's party! I'm still kinda iffy about HH Aurora.
This River's Phoenix got all sorts of leggy while I was gone. I was going to put it in a bigger pot while I sort out where everything is going. I should be able to put the soil level up to the middle set of leaves, shouldn't I? Maybe up to the higher sets of leaves? I don't want to start off with a super leggy plant. Funny thing is my River's Phoenix didn't get taller than 2" last year.
calico20hill I think Honken tried the vacuum seal thing a few years ago and it was a dissater. MAybe he will chime in on it and tell you how that worked out. I am glad we share our not so good results as well as our bright ideas!
I lost ALL of my stock between the 2017 and 2018 season which was the year I tried vacuum sealing. I'm 97% sure that it was the vacuum sealing that did it but I also think there's an outside chance they had frost damage that year.
Plastic wrap is the only method that works for me. It’s terribly time consuming, both wrapping AND unwrapping. I find the tighter they’re wrapped, the better. The ones with any air inside tend to get fuzzy mold. I experimented with all of the odd shaped and multi-tuber clumps by storing in vermiculite. Lost quite a few because they dried out too much. I’ll try again this year. I’d sure love to be able to throw them in storing medium and be done.
Made my first trip to the nurseries today and there were lots of dahlias to choose from.
AndreaB I too used the saran wrap method which was highlighted on the ADS website. Thanks for mentioning "the tighter the better", I'll pay attention to that. I used the recommendation from YouTube channel "Moorfield Farm Flowers", and he said after dividing the tubers, to let the tubers dry at room temperature until they no longer feel cool when touched by the back of your hand. I had the tubers laid out in a single layer on newspaper in my house. They were typically dry in 12-36 hours. That test of dryness really worked. Another thing I did was observe the wrapped tubers, for a few days, for any condensation developing, before putting them in final storage. I rewrapped one variety that developed condensation as the room cooled down. I liberally used cinnamon on any cut surface of the tubers.
Wrapping tubers; Over the years we have identified varieties that make tubers that are invincible and seldom if ever rot no matter how you store them. Wrapping them in plastic would be a waste of time. Examples, Cornel and Chilson's Pride, Mingus Toni are difficult to kill in storage. There are lots of these easy keeping varieties. Wrapping tubers is appropriate for tubers that may rot. The easiest storing tubers are stored about 10 tubers to a plastic t shirt bag with no storage medium at all , no vermiculite no nothing.