How to Store Flower Bulbs for Winter Season

Knowing how to store bulbs for the winter season will ensure that your bulbs will be luminous flowers next spring. A geophyte is an herbaceous plant with an underground storage organ. Storage organs are reserves of carbohydrates, nutrients, and water, and may be classified as bulbs, corms, tubers, rhizomes, tuberous roots, and enlarged hypocotyls.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• peat moss
• small cardboard boxes
• newspaper, sand or sawdust
• snippers
• a dry cool place to place bulbs

1. Cleaning - If you dug up your bulbs from the ground, gently brush off any loose dirt. Do not use water to wash your bulbs, any excess water added to your bulbs will develop into rot or fungus.

2. Packing - Remove the bulbs from any plastic bags or containers. DO NOT store in air tight containers that could cause moisture buildup. Instead, pack you bulbs in a cardboard box for storing. Layer the bulbs in the box with newspaper, peat moss or another dry material in-between each layer. Remember to properly label your box by color and type.

3. Location - The best way to store your bulbs for winter is in a cool dry place. The bulbs should be in a well ventilated place If you are storing spring blooming bulbs, the garage is also a good spot. Be sure to check the bulbs regularly throughout the winter for desiccation and mold.

Tips & Warnings

• Temperature and moisture requirements for storage vary for each bulb species
• Cannas - Cut the stems back to 4-5 inches be careful when digging the roots up right after the first frost. Let the roots dry for several hours. Place roots in a small box with peat moss, sawdust, or sand. Store in a cool, moderately dry area where temperatures are between 35 and 50 degrees; The tuberous roots should not dry and shrivel, so check them periodically throughout the winter. Sprinkle water on roots if necessary.
• Crinum - Store bulbs in slightly damp sand or peat moss at 38-45°F If grown as a houseplant Leave in the pot, keep slightly damp but put in a cool room with temperatures of 50-55F.
• Crocosmia- Store the corms (similar to a bulb) in dry peat or sand at 40°F. Lift the plants in the fall either when the plants yellow or after the first frost. Cut the stems back to 1 inch and allow the corms to dry. Remove the old, dead portion, keeping only the new plump corms. Plant directly in the ground in beginning spring.
• Dahlia- Dahlias can stay in the ground with mulch, but it is risky. they must be dug out before a hard freeze, but their tops may be allowed to die back from a light frost. These tubers don't like to get completely dried out. Over the winter in peat moss, check monthly for desiccation . Mist lightly, if necessary. Dahlia tubers are usually directly planted, once temperatures warm.
• Eucomis- Store bulbs dry at 55-65°F
• Freesia - Store corms dry at 77-86°F (25-30°C).
• Follow as directed for Crocosmia‘s.
• Gladiolus - Store them dry but with excellent ventilation at 40-50°F. Excessive moisture will quickly rot this bulb so check several times a winter and remove any bulbs that are soft
• Liatris- You can store corms in moist peat moss at 35°F but it is much easier to leave them in the ground where they are usually a hardy perennial.
• Lily- You can store them indoors in moist peat moss at 35°F but it is far easier to leave them in the ground.
• Nerine -
• Treat like gladiolus, store them dry with good ventilation at 35°F.
• Ranunculus- Store tuberous roots quite dry at 50-55°F.

[onenight]

on 8/11/2009 Didn't know I could do that. Thank you. I gave it 5 stars & Recommended ya. =)