Thanks Johannian! I'm glad to hear and will check later. Now let's get this growing season underway!

Well yes, it appeared so I turned it on, but it's still popping up w my ad blocker to allow. It's not the only site doing so and as far as I know my app is up to date. Makes you wonder who changed what.

It's dark out. I went through a list of a fairly local grower that my local dahlia friend is in contact with. If I understand it's the beginning of the end of their business and the list is nice and I have found a few I'd be interested in. My friend isn't sure if there will be offerings but I best to be ready if so. I'll have to reach out and see.

I'm ready to start playing in the dirt. We had a big melt off yesterday and maybe thats why! It felt springlike. But we're to have snow on Monday. Yesterday it said 3-6". This morning now it says an inch or less. Something is sketchy there too.

Happy day all! I'm off to get some house crazy tackled. My kids are sounding better overnight so I'm hopeful we are on the road to wellness. Stay well yourselves, there's a lot of nasty crud out there.

Arturo
Love the pink/purple dahlia photo you posted.
I may have grown that color last summer, too. It's the darkest one in the bouquet:

Thanks for the acorn, Scarlet.

No problem kid!

Anyone else want to just move onto spring? Yesterdays thaw was great!

Kathy, Just came back, my flower is glowing purple but closer to yours in the bouquet top left largest.
Two misnomers opened to me :
A lilac cactus bloomed; 'Good Earth' is the closest I could pin it to. It suposed to be 'Jocondo'

The second supposed to be 'Lindsay Michelle'

It looks more like 'Apricot Star'. My bloom lacks the red tips.

'Nagano 'opened

Two separate bushes one has more red like this photo, the other has much more white tips.

I'm more or less accepting that this season it will be a choice from succesive aproximations. ( Honestly I enjoy dahlias so much for their cheery exhuberance that their correct naming is only an accesory atribute). Those that do well here and like, I'll try to store and multiply regardless their noidity....
Happy New Year to everyone
Arturo

Happy new year all! Look forward to everyone's sweet blooms this coming summer. Can you tell I'm ready to get planting?!

Arturo: lovely news to hear you are full of blooms. I too find the NOIDs interesting. Yearly I end up with a few but sometimes you find a new favorite amongst these. What's been your favorite so far?

Again, happy new year ahead! Stay warm and safe today, I'll see you in 2023.

Happy 2023 to all. May it be filled with bountiful blooms of all kinds.

Arturo
I so agree. Noid plants/blooms have become the norm around my dahlia rows. I'm enchanted, too, with the vibrant colors & rich, robust foliage. So much so, I no longer label. Ha ha ! Call me reckless !

P.S.: Happy New Year - let the 2023 garden planning begin !

Happy new year all! May 2023 be kind and prosperous to you all! Also - may we all have a bodacious amount of blooms this summer, no JBs and just lovely gardens!

Happy New Year to all the dahlia forum folks! I hope 2023 brings you and your families good health, peace, prosperity and massive amounts of nice dahlia blooms!

Weather has been nice since last weekend. Highs have mostly been upper 40s to lower 50s. A few days ago we reached 65. Snow is gone except for a small pile left from the heap I shoveled from the driveway last week. It feels like March or April but temps will drop into the 30s by late this week.

And the bad news..... I've stored most of my tubers in the attic for the past 10-12 years. I kept a thermometer up there and never saw the temp drop below the mid 50s even in the coldest winters. Last Saturday, I opened the attic door and couldn't believe the cold air coming out. Roofers had installed 6 roof vents when they put shingles on the house 3-4 years ago. But I've never had this cold air coming in before. I squeezed a few tubers and they were ice cold. I brought them all downstairs but I think they had frozen. Some felt solid after warming up so I wrapped 7-8 dozen and put them in my mini fridge. Those still feel solid so hopefully, most will survive but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a total loss. Around 100 others felt spongy and were tossed into the trash cans of compost. I've already ordered from two suppliers and have two more orders almost ready to send. Looks like I picked a good year to reduce the numbers!

Good luck to those making and keeping NY resolutions. Mine will be the same as every year..... lose weight. I gained back a few of the 17-18 pounds I lost when I was sick last spring but I still down 10-12 pounds from this time last year.

Dan: I'm sorry to hear that. If I need to ship anything back, let me know. I have to check mine yet for January, but today isn't that day as the crud has found me too. Meh.

At least you found them now instead of in March so you can still order what you would like and have possible availability. But dang, I hate when things go crazy when they have been so good before. Might the issue be something frozen open? How are your bath vents? I had a mourning dove who wanted to nest build in mine when I was running the bath fan during the shower and heard her cooing when I turned it off. You never know!

I just listened to both of these and found them informative:

https://coseytownflowers.com/b...

It was a nice way to start the new year and put me in a planting frame of mind. It was nice to hear she's fitting her business in with her family life. I totally understand trying to fit it all in and I don't have that many tubers nor sell, but the kid duty and garden duty I totally get.

So give a listen if you're interested.

Happy New Year, my dahlia peeps!!!

Scarlet, I'll have to give that a listen tomorrow when it's supposed to be crappy out. Thanks for posting the link! I've still only placed 3 small orders and am holding steady. Starting to get the itch to play in the dirt here, too.

Dan, dang that is a bummer about your tubers in the attic. Good luck with your New Year's Resolution, hope the elliptical is treating you well. I'm still going to the gym regularly and I've lost more weight than I thought possible. Was lifting the other day and a trainer told me that if I want to get more muscley, then I need to double my calories and eat more protein. Now that was a strange conversation!

Melissa: lucky you w weight. I'm contemplating but I'm one of these who thinks an awful lot and just moves on. I'm not feeling too great and My mom has reminded me to watch it for appendicitis. Joy new year and insurance just rolled over. I really would rather not and knock it off to other crud going around and it can go away as quickly as it found me.

Yes I too am ready to go play in the dirt but this snow and ice is thinking of making a repeat performance the next few days here. It's currently 40 here. Suns out and maybe it's melting the stuff on the drive. It's been a day for me to lie low.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Happy New Year!!

I subscribed to DahliaAddict last weekend. This makes it easier to keep up with the supplier openings and sold-out lists. I just wish a few suppliers had more of the ones I want. As it is, ordering from multiple places costs a ton in shipping charges alone.

Melissa, great that you've lost that weight! That's a nice reward for all the hard work. I've heard trainers talk about the need for more calories in order to gain muscle. Your post reminded me of an article Sports Illustrated did on an offensive tackle (Tony Mandarich) from back in the late 80s who played for Mich. St. He said he needed to eat 7 meals a day and take in 12,000-15,000 calories in order to be able to work out and perform on the field. The story showed his WEEKLY shopping list, which took up a column and a half. I googled and found that article yesterday in the SI vault. Just the meat on the list was staggering. It included 6 lbs. of ground meat, 4 lbs. of ground turkey. 3 lbs. of hot dogs, 4 lbs., of chicken, 2 lbs. of pork and 2 lbs of Italian sausage. I can't remember the amount of steaks. There was also a mountain of bread, fruit and vegetable (10 lbs of potatoes!). That was per week! I can't believe any human could consume that much. As they say on TV, "Don't try this at home"!

BTW, the elliptical climber is kicking my butt! I've been using it and the fan bike mostly to warm up for the other exercises. But I'm going to start devoting a day a week for just those two.

Dan: yay for you! I am keeping an eye on menards and hope their buyer took to heart to bring in different types and not those 5 a bag types. Ugh. I usually at most want 2 not 5. I don't have the space and like more of a variety.

AM: saw what happened to the player last night: my, that's frightening. My dad played hall through college and coached so I know there can be issues playing but it's usually rare and when it happens it pauses your thoughts on sports. I do hope he recovers just fine and this becomes just a blip in his long life.

Heading to the basement to deal w my plants and shelf. I hope I can get that done easily and move on.

I'm feeling better today. Man the crud can go. At least the horrid stomach cramps have subsided.

May your new year start off well. Keep illness at bay and may your world be kind to you!

I just went out on a limb and sent an order to Van Bourgondien. They have a 20% off sale through 2/03. I've had issues with them in the past and haven't ordered again in years. The packaged clumps ended up costing a little over $17 for 5. I was intrigued with Radegast and added two more varieties. I don't like buying 5 of a kind but even if only 2 end up being viable, $17 is about the same or less than you'd pay for 2 tubers anywhere else.

I plan to go out on that limb again (Gosh, that limb is getting smaller the farther I crawl out!) and will likely send orders to Easy-To-Grow-Bulbs, Longfield and Pleasant Valley. I had planned to only grow 50-60 plants this summer but since I'm anticipating losing a ton of tubers to rot, I might fudge on that number a "tiny" bit. LOL This will be a year to built stock.

Good luck with the orders, Dan. I'm sure some will have you smiling.