Fall Time Bulb Storage

Thanlks, Sally--

I have something I dug up that I no longer want. They never did do much for me.
All these did was take up a spot I could plant something else in.

SO--these are available....
They are the dwarf, purple Iris. I know there is a name for them....
I have about a dozen, or more, sections.

I have them in shallow soil in a deep tray for now. Are YOU interested?
I know others may want them too--but I do not want to baby-sit these till a swap.

Mention this at Jill's Saturday--that is unless you want them all.

LMK Gita

I will mention those, I'm sure I can take them sometime and find places or homes for them.

G, if no one else lays claim, I can take a couple. I'm sure I can find a home for them.

I want to share these--not have someone take them all--except to share them further..

Would, those of you that want some, be willing to have me mail them to you?
That would cost you the postage, though!! And--NO! I don't have Pay Pal!
Everyone assumes that everyone does....

Jeff. You live farther away..I'll give you 1st dibs. How many would you want?
These sections are all pretty small--but that is natural--as these Iris' are dwarf.
I have had these for many years.....someone sent me one in a trade-and it spread.

In the place where these were I planted the two, clearanced, tall Lobelias I got at Lowes.
They will look nice in front of my Autumn Sunset Climbing Rose. Hide the bare stems.

Let me know if you want some to be mailed to you.

Gita, you could even hang onto them until the seed swap... paper bag would be fine... and people could simply pot them up (keep outside) and plant them out in spring. Iris rhizomes are really tough. Dwarf ones might shrivel a bit if left unplanted until spring, but Feb. potting should take care of that.

Hmmmmm--not sure wan to have something else to "hang on to'..
Besides--if the roots dry up--I am sure they will skip a year in blooming.

I still have to dig up my cannas and all my Caladiums.
We are still having these nice days--means I will, once again, spend hours
outside working my tail off...

Lets just see what people prefer.. G.

I'll take a couple small ones. One of which, if you don't mind, I'd like to give to my new neighbor. LMK.

Jeff--I sent you a D-mail for your address.

G.

I pried up the big 'Odora' like elephant ear today. Man, the size of that thing. Leaves were topping out at five feet, I thought Holly's looked huge, but mine was no slouch!
The sunny weekend was good to dry things out, I think I have dug what will be dug and let them dry enough for storage.

Light frost this morning... we'll see what happened to the dahlias etc. that are still out there. I figure the tubers should be fine even if the tops get nipped. I did go out and pick the last few peppers. :-) I also sprayed down the plumeria pot and will pull them up this week... buds turned black last week, phooey. Time to bring in the remaining houseplants, too!

Sally, Heading out now to start digging mine up. Josh is here working on the heating system and Ric's home too. If I get them out of the ground maybe the guys will carry them upstairs for me.

Here are some of the Portadora bulbs I dug up 3 of the 4 beds so far and have 5 trays of bulbs to over winter. Like I said earlier, just dig them up and knock off some of the dirt. Then they will stay in these trays just like this. I will store them in the upstairs plant room under the seed starting table.

I still haven't dug up the black stem elephant ear. I'm waiting for it to go dormant first, but it's still holding on!

My regular green elephant ear and sweet potato vines are still looking great.

The caladium bulbs have been thrown out. I think I waited too long to dig them up. I'd rather treat them as annuals, anyway.

I gotta say, I *love* only having 2 tubers overwinter, plus the brug when the flowers finally stop blooming. I now have a ton of houseplants (how did this happen??) that need to be brought in for the winter, so not having to worry about dragging bulbs and dormant plants down to the half basement feels great.

I dug up my Caladiums earlier this week.
The Aaron is the most prolific in having grown more and bigger bulbs.
I now have loads of these....

The others had a few small bulbs.... G.

ssg, those suckers (EEs) may not even go dormant after getting yanked! Last year I cut all the leaves off to make cast leaves, then put the potted green EE under a table in the basement. It started a new leaf sometime over winter.
My huge green EE is in a little pot just big enough for the roots that came up on it, when I pried it loose.

I always try to dig the caladiums (or bring pots inside to dry out and store in the basement), but they only seem to get smaller during the growing season. I think they like growing in FL much better than in MD! LOL Even though I can get another year or two out of them, they're so much smaller each year that treating them as annuals sounds pretty good to me.

I did have some caladium bulbs left from the spring sale that I potted up as I was bringing containers and hanging baskets inside. I did the same with some tuberose, hoping they'll grow and bloom by spring. If they do fine, I may be able to skip a year before ordering again. Bill does give us some tempting deals, though!

I had two clumps of tuberose. One went in full warm sun this year, the other on the moist side of the house. 'Constant moisture' won out over 'more sun and warmer'- the moist one bloomed, the sun one did not.

So as long as I water those big pots regularly, the tuberoses in them might do just fine.

I planted some leftover glads last month, wasn't sure what they'd do, but now they're a foot tall! I know they won't bloom before frost, but I'm hoping they'll overwinter.

Deer ate tuberose, glads and coleus.

Black stem EE have never gone dormant for me even though their pots are on unheated porch in the dark for the winter. I don't even cut back the leaves on them as they will absorb as much of their fleshy substance as needed through out winter. Pots of Dragonwing Begonia and Mona Lavender plectranthus will generally keep blooming with little care and a trim back and good watering and feed in Spring. Tropical Milkweed has maintained ok trimmed back dand kept just above 40, two even bloomed last winter with not great light.

oh pooh, darn deer. Good tips to keep in mind. on those other plants. I just can't seem to come up with many extra spots for plants. The black EE is even now trying to open another leaf and flower.

I think EEs stay dormant for me because my half basement stays very cool and completely dark.

Sorry to hear about all that deer damage!

Oh OOOH!

Does that mean my Tropical Milkweed will not live through winter?
It is in a huge pot and has grown well this summer...

Do I need to do anything to it? Will it just come back next year?

Thanks, Gita

TROPICAL milkweed will not make it through the winter if you just leave it outside in a pot. !!

Maybe you can cut it back and stuff it into a small container for the winter? If you keep it cool-ish and dark-ish, it won't be doing much growing, so it shouldn't need much in the way of space, water, etc.

My multi-stemmsd Tropical Milkweed was from coleup--several seedlings.
I planted them in a huge pot--thinking I could let it grow there for several years.

They are tall--and still have remnants of blooms on the ends and seeds-fluffs
are still forming and flying off...
I have collected a lot of seeds from it--as i always do....;o(.

I think I will just let it sit where it is and que serra--serra!

Gita

This says 8B, so I will try my warm side and extra protection. The Black and Blue Salvia kicked butt there through this past winter with the deep freeze, and got huge this summer.

http://nababutterfly.com/tropical-milkweed/#cultural

If nothing else, I bet it dropped a lot of seeds right into that pot!

Sally, your warm nook sounds almost as good as a greenhouse -- and less work/$ to maintain!

We have kept tropical hibiscus in the GH over winter, with success. Spider mite can plague them though.
A number of years ago we raised a whole bed of dahlias for Holly's cousins wedding. Her fav was Duet, a white tipped burgundy. I did the bouquets, table arrangements, and topped the mufti-tiered cakes with arrangements. As the early fall date approached, so did the frost, and the worry of insect or deer invasion. We were biting our nails right up till the night before when we cut the stems and arranged them in clean buckets. We were successful in our efforts, and everything came out well.
When we dug the bulbs and stored them that fall we were not experienced with storage methods and quite a few turned to mush. Since then we have learned a lot. Sorry I could not find any pics from the occasion.

Dahlias are tough indeed. I'm still in the learning phase of growing them. I dug all my tubers Saturday and ended cutting through a couple tubers because I didn't dig deep enough. Also, I cut them last Monday because we weren't supposed to get any precip all week but we ended up getting that snow so some water got in the stems and froze. Hopefully the tubers aren't shot but I guess we'll see.

Seg et al,
a dusting of cinnamon on wounded or cut surfaces of bulbs and tubers to be stored will help keep out disease and inhibit fungus.

Yes! I was informed of that via the Dahlia forum. They said either that or garden sulfur. I had to go out and buy cinnamon though because Darcy wouldn't let me use her fancy cinnamon...LOL

seriously= use the Costco cinnamon, not the Penzey's!!

or Dollar stores $.99 stuff.
Jeff , I don't think you know what we can pay to tingle your taste buds.LOL

Haha....that's what she has, the Penzey's. Makes no difference to me ;-)

Ollie's usually has a great selection of spices--the more common ones--
in the larger bottles for almost nothing. But--you never know how old they are...

Also--Gershbecks (an old grocery store here) has their own brand of spices in
containers bigger than a soda can for about $3.99-$4.99.

The main store is on Eastern Ave. a mile or so South of Martin's Airport.
Great meat prices too--and all local produce and fruit in season.
Best place for seafood!

http://geresbecks.com/