Ranunculus in zone 6

Hi everybody,
I planted some Ranunculus tubers in spring (in containers since I live in zone 5b-6a depending on the site I check in), I got few flowers from the almost 200 tubers I planted, so I assume the tubers I purchased were small so I left them in the containers to gather some food and sun light. At the mid of Summer (I think) all the leaves were gone so I collected my containers and put them in the garage to let the soil dry and then sort the tubers for Winter storing. After a few weeks when I was checking on them to see if the soil completely dry (which was not) I notice that the tubers are shooting new leaves so I took them out again to let them get sun light. for my surprise the foliage they have now is more dense and healthy than the one I got from them in spring. The problem now is Ranunculus in my growing zone consider tender just like dahlia, but my dahlia foliage died and I am drying my dahlia tubers in the basement. The Ranunculus foliage is still green and the tubers does not want to go into dormancy during winter. I am not ready to have that much of containers with live plants indoor!!!! what should I do to make them go dormant?? and if I stopped watering them (which I was not anyway, they were watered from the rain we have) and let them dry in the basement, are they going to bloom this spring? please share what you know of how to keep the tubers alive and ready for spring, I really want those flowers in my garden and you cannot imagine how much I tried to grow them from seeds before I got the tubers. Many thanks

I am experiencing difficulty with Ranunculus too . I bought some plants two years ago and left them in the container that they came in , they bloomed them dried up and I thought they were dead , but by fall they began to sprout again. I put the container in the basement and brought it out in spring and I did not see any germination so I dumped the soil in another large pot and put a Canna lily plant in it . This fall to my great surprise I saw the Ranunculus sprouting up , so again I put the pot of the Cannc lily and the Ranunculus in the basement again hoping they bloom beautiful next season. I have to wish both of us luck next year .laugh

thank you cytf, I decided to dry up the bulbs in the big containers supposedly they contain a 100 tubers but when I started sorting the first one I could not find the 25 tubers I put there originally (probably the squirrels got to them) or they just rotted because of the rain in their dormancy time. I will leave the small containers untouched (green and happy LOL). I am not giving up on my Ranunculus. Thank you again cytf and hopefully somebody from DG will add to this thread or we are going to learn by try and error (poor little Ranunculus LOL), so good luck to everybody and happy gardening.

I too find these little corms very erratic when it comes to germination, I planted a new flower/Shrub bed 2 years ago, that was late summer, nothing showed up, then Spring time, a good few plants burst into flower, beautiful colours, sadly, the squirrels also discovered their beauty and proceeded to dig up the other tubers and eat them, hope they had a real upset tummy LOL.
Good Luck, and Best Regards
WeeNel.