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Lifting, Dividing, and Storing Bulbs
Why Lift Bulbs?
We lift, divide and store bulbs indoors to protect them from freezing temperatures and from heat in areas with cold winters or in arid-desert climates.
Such care is seldom needed in mild-winter areas, but divide bulbs when beds become overcrowded.
Lifting is the careful digging of bulbs after their flower displays have faded and all their foliage has died. At that point, the bulbs are dormant and they’ve stored nutrients for their next growth cycle. They’ve also reproduced, either by dividing or by similar processes.
Lifting and Storing Bulbs
We lift bulbs from the garden and store them indoors. It’s necessary whenever climate conditions—such as cold, heat, humidity, and precipitation—cause them to stay damp while dormant, freeze, dehydrate, or suffer overly high soil temperatures. After lifting, separate bulbs or divide rhizomes and tuberous rooted plants to create new, individuals.
Let bulbs remain in the soil from season to season in climates that that mimic their native growing conditions.
Mediterranean climates—such as those found along the Pacific Coast of the United States—are hospitable to many spring bulbs that originated in southern Europe or the Middle East.
Southern California, the Gulf states, Florida, Hawaii, and other mild-winter, semi-tropical climates support in-ground cultivation of evergreen varieties and summer bulbs. Those same bulbs must be lifted in cold-winter climates.
When to Lift Bulbs
Lift spring bulbs after dormancy’s onset to retain their health and vitality.
As foliage yellows, mark each bulb’s position to make finding them easy after their leaves wither or are removed. Dig carefully. Start at the outside margins of the bed. Use a garden fork to loosen the soil, aiming its tines deep below the bulbs and prying up to unearth and reveal them.
Shake each bulb to remove any clinging soil. Lay the dug bulbs onto a canvas tarp or newsprint paper. Let most bulbs dry in a warm, dry spot, out of the sun [see: Curing and Storing Bulbs].
Some bulbs lack onionskin-like tunics. They will quickly dry out and die without protection. After lifting store those species in breathable containers, packed in slightly moist peat moss. The Bulbs guide gives recommendations on how to store each bulb species [see: Storage sections for each species, in Bulbs].
Dividing Bulbs, Tubers, and Roots
Most bulbs grow offsets, bulblets, bulbils, new tubers, or root divisions before becoming dormant.
Rearing new plants from small bulblets and bulbils often takes several seasons before they bloom [see: Propagating Bulbs]. Retain these bulblets and bulbils if you wish to try growing them to maturity; otherwise, discard them.
Carefully clean and separate larger offsets and tubers from the parent bulbs. Plant them with the harvested parent bulbs the following season. They usually bloom in one to two years.
Plants with rhizomatous and tuberous roots form dense, clumping colonies. Bulbs in the center of these colonies lack sufficient water and nutrients. They are stunted and have small or no blooms at all. When colonies become crowded, it’s time to divide their plants to maintain health and vigor [see: Dividing Bulbs and Roots].