One of the jobs last week was to lift the Dahlias from the Memorial Gardens. These are called Border Princess.
Once lifted I knock as much soil from them as I can by banging each tuber on the ground a few times. Some people like to wash them off and what have you but I don't have time to carry on like that and besides which I have never had any problems from doing it the way I do.
When they are as clean as I can get them I load them in to crates and stack them on flower trolleys in the potting shed. I just leave them as they are, I don't bother to cover them with anything unless a very hard frost was to threaten. They just sit there until planting time next year. Sometimes if there is a variety that I need to increase I will bring them out in January and pot them up and bring them on in the greenhouse so that I get shoots to take cuttings from.
After the tubers were all lifted and stored away I dug over the beds, I like to do this as it tidies everything up for the Winter also it makes for easier planting next year. Apart from the Dahlias you see in these beds I also have another border in which the tubers have been over wintered in the ground For the past few years. I've found this to be alright up to a point. The thing is we haven't had any hard Winters for a while so I can't say what would happen if we did and they were still in the ground. Also I have found that some varieties cope better than others which was obvious this year as some varieties have been lost completely where as others have not been lost at all. So for that reason I have also lifted these tubers as well.
After all the Dahlia lifting and storing I just had time to tidy the two rose beds in the Memorial Garden. This involved pruning, weeding, edging and forking so that everything is in good order in the Memorial Garden for the Winter.
2 comments:
Another good Autumn job done. At first I thought there was a wall across the top bed but on reflection I assume it's a bridge, footpath.
There are some steps in the middle which effectively make it two beds. It's what this time of year is all about, tidying up after the party. I also try to leave things ready to go for next Spring. Like for instance with the rose beds. Rose pruning was traditionally a March time job when I was younger but if I can get them done now it's not only that job less but it also means I can fork over the soil too so come March all I need to do it give them a top dressing and a hoe through which saves me a lot of time when I have loads of work to do. I've also found that the roses pruned now get going a lot quicker than the roses pruned later.
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