Digging Up Caladium Bulbs & Storing Them Over Winter

We have an email from Lori in Louisville, and she asked about when she should be digging up her caladium bulbs or tubers, which is coming up pretty soon here, honestly. We are getting cool. I would say even now you could do it.

I mean, they are starting to drop their leaves and that kind of thing. It is a good idea to cut the leaves off and dig them that way. That way you’re storing them easier. But they don’t like this cooler temperature, so I would say get them out before this first frost comes in.

We just don’t want the bulb to freeze, so as long as you do it early enough that the ground hasn’t frozen. But that frost that makes that top of that plant go dormant and draws some energy back into the bulb, so there’s some value in waiting.

We are right at that bubble where, yes, you could do it now. You could wait another week or two. We don’t want to wait two months. And that’s one of those ones that’s not used to frosts, you know, a really, really hard frost would take it out. This first one’s usually not that heavy. Trim the top off and let it be dormant in a box in the window of the basement or something.

When you do lift your bulbs, you know, we’ll just go ahead and talk about that too. Tubers, like your dahlias, caladiums, cannas, elephant ears, anything that you want to save that’s not hardy, it’s a good idea to dig them up and cut the tops off, cut the foliage off because you want that to become dormant and shake off usually as much dirt as you can. Let it be real dry. I usually put it out on something like mesh or something like that and store it in like a potato sack or a paper bag even. You just want it to be breathable. You don’t ever use plastic or anything like that. And I just put it down in the basement and I put it on my calendar, you know, to remember to get it out because I’ve forgotten things before too. Just remember to get those out early spring.

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