My garden is above the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, and it doesn’t freeze here in the winter. So my practice has been to cut dahlias way back, but leave them in the ground after they’ve bloomed. This has been disappointing, as subsequent years dahlias have been reasonably pathetic, often without any blooms.

With my big, red dinner-plate dahlias I decided this year to try taking out the tubers and putting them in cool storage over the autumn and winter. The bunch of tubers shown in this image (below) are now resting comfortably within a bed of vermiculite in the fridge. Hopefully, after I plant them in the early spring, they will grow strong and productive of many flowers! Of course, there is no certainty in gardening because there are so many factors, but I am hopeful that storing them over-winter will improve my results.

Flowers are indeed beautiful in so many myriad ways! But sometimes seeds, roots, bulbs, and the tools of gardening are also beautiful in their own way, and in their own right.