Master Gardener Sue Morris: Store tender bulbs indoors during winter

When should you dig your tender bulbs to bring inside for winter storage?

There are different answers for different plants. Caladium, elephant ears, calla lily, tuberous begonia and Star of Bethlehem should be dug before a killing frost hits them.

If the begonia is in a pot, you can bring the whole pot into the basement if you want and withhold water until April.

Other bulbs should be laid out in a warm dry area and dried down. Tops should be cut off at that time. Caladium needs to be kept at or near 70 degrees in storage. The rest do well in 50-degree temps in the cool part of the basement.

The University of Minnesota recommends these bulbs be stored in sphagnum peat or vermiculite. We have stored them successfully in cardboard boxes after being properly cured.

You don’t need to wait for frost to dig glads. They may be dug six weeks after bloom.

Long-term curing for glads should be approximately three weeks. After three weeks, the old corm and cormels should be removed. Drying and curing temperatures for such materials should be 60-70 degrees in a dry, well-ventilated area.

Before storing corms, inspect for insects or diseases. Dust with an insecticide-fungicide mixture labeled for glads if needed.

If you experienced thrips in your glads this year, dust with carbaryl (Sevin) before storage, shaking the corms in a bag with a small amount of the dust — just 2 teaspoons per hundred corms.

Store them flat in cardboard boxes, not touching each other. This way when they start to sprout in the spring, the sprouts will sprout straight up and give you a nice heads up in the garden.

By now you should have brought your amaryllis in the house before frost. Let the leaves die back naturally in a darkened, warm area — basement.

If you want indoor winter bloom, start potting up and/or watering the amaryllis about six weeks before expected bloom. With careful planning you can have continual color from Christmas until tulip time, if you have enough bulbs.

To achieve this, as the first amaryllis start to shoot a bud, pot up the next group. Remember after bloom during the winter, you need to continue to water and fertilize the amaryllis until they can be planted outdoors again after all danger of frost in the spring.

Cut off flower stalk but keep all leaves intact as that is what rejuvenates the bulb for the next bloom.

If you prefer to have your amaryllis bloom outdoor in the summer, keep them dormant until they may be planted safely outside.

Dahlias shouldn’t be dug until after a killing frost. The frost enables the moisture to drain from the stalk and go into the tuber. Wait a week after frost to cut off the stalk, leaving six inches above ground.

When you dig the tubers, hose the dirt off them and let them dry before storing for winter.

There are several ways to store dahlias.

Marvin Patten, from Clara City, is a very experienced grower and has exhibited at county fairs and the State Fair for years with excellent results. He has a variety of storage suggestions — different for each situation.

Some use a crate or cardboard box lined with 10 to 12 layers of newspaper filled with a variety of storage mediums ranging from slightly dampened peat moss to pet bedding material such as sawdust or shavings.

Start packing material in the bottom and layer your tubers and medium until box is full. Check on tubers throughout winter months.

The tubers can be wrapped in newspaper which you would check and moisten as needed throughout the winter.

There are those that wrap them in plastic wrap and store in working old refrigeration above freezing. Many feel that plastic wrap could be too tight. Marv just uses plastic grocery bags and places his tubers in them and places them in waxed lined cardboard boxes and stores them just above freezing about 45 degrees.

He has about 95 percent of his tubers survive. Marv says if you divide your tubers in the fall, you should dry again after dividing. Also to cut that 6-inch stump close to the bulb when washing them.

The bulb can be labeled with a black marker before storage.