I just entered a few pictures in the contest and was excited to see that there have been, at this point, 1142 photos by 69 members. What fun

I realize dahlias are tubers, not bulbs. Do dahlias get entered under perennials or bulbs? I know how dumb it sounds!

I am happy to not be the one who decides. I would enter it in bulbs but it actually grows from a tuber as you know. Another quandary for me is that some things that are annuals here are perennial in warmer gardens. We are among friends so hopefully we don't need to be to technical. Maybe Dave or Zuzu will chime in.

I think you have a choice with dahlias. I'd be inclined to enter them as perennials, but they certainly fit into the bulb category as well.

Sounds like this first round will be a bit of a learning process. I'm sure we will all have tons of suggestions for future contests to fine tune things, and I am happy to just let the chips fall where they may this go-round. As Paul notes, we are all a friendly group so I don't foresee any hard feelings.

Thanks for the help!

I considered bulbs to mean forms of underground food storage systems but then many other plants might qualify.

My only issue comes up with a sunset in the rose category or some such error on the part of those posting to the wrong subject.

It happens all the time, you see all kinds of incorrect images in wrong categories.

For those images that are badly miscategorized, I will probably move things around before judging begins. Also, the plant admins recently pointed out to me some photos that were entered in the macro category, but they were clearly not macro photos, and I simply deleted the photos.

I was wondering just how close up a photo has to be to be considered "macro?"

Quoting from wikipedia:

"Macro photography is extreme close-up photography, usually of very small subjects, in which the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size."

Thank you. I thought as much, but wasn't sure for purposes of the contest.

I thought the category was for both Close up and Macro shots so all of mine in that category may have to be deleted.

Also some of my photos in other categories may need to be deleted; i.e. Cactus and Succulents, I think a few of my photos were bloom close ups of the particular cactus flower instead of the entire plant.

The category is is for both macros and closeups.

Oh, good ... mine won't have to be deleted then.

I did my dahlias under bulbs since for me they aren't perennial and I had others that I wanted as annuals Surely a learning experiance for all of us this year...I can see lots of new categories in next years contest

LOL! I just looked at the number of entries. Gonna be 2000+ I bet. Only two days to look at all of them. I hope there will be a slideshow option where we can set the speed and have a pause option. I'm not sure I could look through that many in two days. I'd probably have to skip feeding the livestock to do that!

Just added a couple to the contest. Count is currently over 1500 with more than 80 participating. Lets work on getting over 2000.....and then more

Wow, so many photos entered!
Who judging the pictures?
All the ATP members?

Yes, all the members (including you!) will vote on their favorites. Everyone gets to cast 3 votes in each category.

Great!
Can't wait to see them all!