Snow and Cold

We've been warned that "La Nina" is going to be generous with us this year in Eastern Washington, lots of moisture mostly in the form of snow. This was well illustrated yesterday, when it started snowing around 4:30 pm. and snowed for about 24 hours, leaving a light layer of snow on lawns and gardens. It is not cold enough for a lot of it to stick, but it is pretty wet, and that wetness is seeping into the ground. If it freezes hard tonight or tomorrow night, as is being predicted, the tubers in the Russell Street garden may be in some jeopardy. I have all my personal tubers up and in storage, but I started to thik about what was in the gardens that my sisters Vicki, Debbie and I work together. We can't get together to dig until tomorrow. I realized that the only known successful plants of Cascade Myrt were over there! I have to admit that I might have panicked a bit, but I pulled myself together, and decided that I needed to get over there and get these dug ASAP. So this morning I went over there, taking my faithful spading fork, and carefully loosened the soil all around the root ball, successfully bringing up a huge clump of dirt-covered tubers. I realized that the rest of the tubers can probably wait until my sisters and I can get together to complete the task, but I still asked myself "Is there anything here that I don't want to risk losing?" I remember how beautiful our Platinum Blonde was in this year's garden- in fact, our single entry of it was awarded a section champ ribbon this year. This is an expensive tuber to buy, and I didn't want to have to shell out the bucks to buy another one if I had perfectly good tubers here. So I spaded up Platinum Blonde as well. I placed the clumps in an old basket, laid it in my trunk, and brought them home, where I rinsed them off on the wire-mesh table top in my back yard. I brought them into my basement storage area, set up some lights, plugged in my radio, tuned to NPR for entertainment while I worked, and brought my dividing and labeling tools in. By the time I had completed the delicate task of separating the VERY close and tight tuber clumps, I had about 12 from Platinum Blonde and 21 from Cascade Myrt! If these survive the winter, it bodes well for this great flower in the coming years. Any dahlia that is this prolific in tuber production can be more readily and successfully shared. Keep your fingers crossed that good old Myrt will survive the winter unscathed!