Overwintering Dahlia's

I take my dahlias out of their pots after the first frosts, cut them right down, clean them of most of the attached compost and then wrap them fairly loosely in newspaper and put them into cardboard boxes to over winter in the garage. I live in the North of England.

We used to winter my father Dahlia collection by leaving them in and covering them with old chimney pots and some straw .
Then came a freezing cold winter and they died .

Since then, I've lifted their replacements and stored them upside down so that the water drains out of them - and in newspaper in a cardboard box .

Good luck .

Thank you everyone, think I will leave them in the pots and put them in the shed.

I too live in the SE and leave mine in pots over winter, ditto begonias. I just move the pots to a sheltered position and they seem fine.

I’ve grown dahlias for many years from seeds and from tubers. In the early days I would lift and store them, variously protected, in the garage. That was almost never successful, so in the end I left them in the ground and mulched them and back they came. The ones in pots do okay overwintered in a sheltered spot too. We live in the North of England. I suppose it depends on how protected your garden is from frosts.

I live in the SE, and have always left mine in the pots, they are fine so far.

It’s the constant wet they seem to hate most. I have tried mulching, and cloches, and left them in the ground before, but they rarely survive. I now lift them, and store them on newspaper in mushroom trays in my garage. I’m in mid Wales in the mountains, so it’s both wet and cold in the winter though, I agree that it depends where you live - if you’re in the south east you would most likely be fine leaving them in the ground all winter.

It all depends on how much and what type of frosts you get.

I live in mid Cornwall but in a frost pocket. My dahlias won't keep in the ground or in pots so I lift them all. We get very wet winters in Cornwall too.

I follow Monty Don's (Gardeners World) way of storing them and put them in my little potting shed under the shelf. It works every time.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06p9drj

Good luck with yours.

I leave my dahlias in the ground and mulch them. Those in pots are moved to a sheltered place. They survived the Beast from the East. I live in Norfolk, near the coast.

Farmor15. I did wonder f I could overwinter in the pots, either in a sheltered spot or the shed rather than lifting. I'm in the NW and it does get a bit colder & wetter here than further south.

I just leave them in their pots and they come up again next year! It depends where you live- if you have very cold winters with a lot of frost, you may need to lift. Mine have survived for a number of years, though sometimes I lift and repot. Some are just directly in the soil and I leave them alone.

My Dad always brought them in and stored them in the cupboard under the stairs. He cleaned them off of any debris and soil wrapped them in newspaper in old cardboard fruit boxes they seemed to always survive.