Thanks. I will take this question over to the Dahlia forum. However, I posted here in hopes someone would have a region-specific comment. So I'm still open to other people's thoughts or stories if someone is in the same zone and has had a similar experience. Best, Myles

Joe, Here are my thoughts: If you go ahead and pull them up and transplant them now, as you have observed, the roots are not yet very strong and are easy to break. You will certainly break a significant proportion of the roots in the process. The cuttings will probably end up OK even if this happens (as long as you don't break all the roots), but it might slow their development down a bit. If you wait a month or two until the roots are stronger, you will have a tangled mess on your hands. Frequently the roots grow straight out until they hit an impediment. They will be stronger, but also more tangled. You can either try to actually untangle them (no doubt breaking some in the process), or just draw a perimeter around each plant and cut straight down, cutting through the ones that have ventured too far away from the cutting. Either way you will lose root mass. In summary, no matter what you do or when you do it, at this point you will lose some amount of root mass no matter what. It is 90% likely they will do fine in spite of this, so don't get too worried. But this is why many folks (myself included) put their cuttings in separate containers right from the start. They figure this way there is less stress put on the cutting in the early stage. Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Rob

Some Ivy's like I think you are describing are marginally hardy so be careful putting them outside. At this point, if it getting that cold I would keep them in that pot, and try to find a place in the house that gets some sun...doesn't need to be excessively warm, like no colder than mid forties, and get them through the winter that way. Spring time plant them out. If you wait until spring you will give them more time to establish for the next winter increasing their chances of survival. If you plant them out now, they may have problems because they won't have time to establish. Hope this helps. DAN

Laura: Looking pretty good. Expect to stagnate for a bit and another growth spurt. Hobby: You have pretty nice roots there in your cuttings. I suspect that the roots grew out of the calloused regions. They are supposed to do that. Yours have a longer region of callous and thus roots. The only thing I can think of is that you did not scrape the outer layer all the way to the core and so there was some living cambium left (it happens quite often). So your callous formed along the length of the stem. Nevertheless, it looks pretty good. Mike: I often do just that. In summer, I would stick cuttings under a bush or some shaded region in the yard and hope they would root. Some make it and it is always fun to find the few that survived the ordeal. I have rooted many evergreens (junipers, cypress, false cypress, boxwood, and recently a dwarf yew, etc) like this. And tropicals like ficus of various kinds, serissa, etc.