Wow, you guys and your multitudes of dahlias. Do any of you have anything other than dahlias in your garden? I have limited myself to 15 and that's enough for me because we have tons of other gardens and plants to tend as well.

I put down wet newspapers and covered with mulch around the pots I put in the ground. Doesn't look great but keeps the weeds down that stress me so much. I planted the third pot with peas. Put a dated tag in to see if this is a viable practice, e.g. I will get produce this year??

I have firmly decided that I will be turning many spaces in my beds (such as they are) into vegie plots, either with partially buried large pots or with 6-12" raised beds. Then newspapers and mulch between to keep the weeds down. I will keep the rows against the fences for flowers and pots here and there for flowers (and the occasional dahlia )

Lititz, I've only recently been bitten by the dahlia bug, tried them last spring to add later season interest to predominantly peony beds. I still have 3 beds that have some dead growth from last fall as well as this spring's weeds, the only bed that looks pretty good is the one I just added dahlias toad even that one could do with some spot weeding.

Dahlias probably comprise about 1/3 of my growing space now, maybe a bit more. But if I only had dahlias I wouldn't have flowers until mid-July.

I have a pretty large front perennial bed with not a single dahlia. On the side of the house I have a very large bed that moves from shade to sun, and I have about 25 dahlias on the sunny end, with lilies and peonies right behind them, a couple of roses, lots of iris, moving to lady's mantle and columbine at the shady end, and some other stuff in there too.

In the back, a bed that is mostly shade, but the sunnier side is sunny enough for lilies and iris, with hellebores, ferns and hostas in the shade. One full shade bed that is mostly hosta, fern, bleeding heart and columbine. Another bed that has 20 dahlias in the sunny end, with lilies and peonies behind. And a largish vegetable garden with 10 raised beds (two (maybe three) of which I am going to put dahlias in this year, because I ran out of room) And two large dahlia beds with about 35 & 50 dahlias respectively.

All of my annuals and vegetables are grown from seed inside under lights.

So...........yes - time for more than just dahlias, but dahlias have been slowly taking over year by year. Better watch out - I used to only have 15 dahlias too

A few years ago I started experimenting with seed growing dahlias. Results were beautiful but unpredictable---I had one that was over 5 feet tall with branches like a shrub. Kept planting more and different seeds and letting rivers overwinter. They all survived but it was getting out of hand. Last fall I dig them all out, washed, sprinkled cinnamon, wrapped in Saran--I had three shoe boxes full! Gave away all but five to newby gardeners. Then I bought some trios of tubers: Islander, something coral, and Cafe Au Lait. So I have around 25 plants coming up and that is enough for me. (For now)

Mr. Optimist dahlia, short and sweet. if I can only find Mr. Optimist, the man.

Wow Geof you must have some time on your hands to tend all that. If I want more dahlias, I'd have to create a new bed because I'm basically out of room for them. I have a thing for shrubs too and they need some more room to grow. Hopefully, over the next couple decades, I'll be able to have less lawn than garden. It's a slow process but I can't do it all at once or my wife will get angry...LOL

Now I have 40, cut back from 60 last year and I'll cut back again in fall. It gets to be a major job and I don't want to ruin the fun by having more than I can handle.

Why is it that for most every gardener, there seems to be a spouse/partner that like "lawn". Luckily thats not a problem for me. The only thing really slowing my continued expansion is lack of sunny areas.

I am a college prof, and usually don't teach summer school, so when I am done with spring semester (this year the first week of May), gardening becomes a full time job for much of the summer. I am always amazed by the folk who have extensive gardens and only have weekends and evenings to deal with them - that takes real dedication.

I doubt I will continue to expand the numbers of dahlias I am growing this year. Tending the pre-started plants did become more of a chore than I wanted it to be. It took enough time/energy that I was really late starting seeds, and cut way back on the amount that I started. My annuals are still not big enough to plant out safely.

I am becoming more and more interested in lilies and iris, earlier color, and you don't have to dig them every year, but its hard to beat the continuous color of dahlias once they start. I have an iris blooming right now that I traded dahlia tubers for that is a stunner, and its brown!, never thought I would love a brown flower.

Dan and Arlene, I agree. It wasn't fun this spring. The 'thrill' of successfully storing 160 or so tubers wore off very quickly as the tending came along. Just not worth it. So like you, Arlene, I am cutting way back. I will save clumps of those that look healthy and that I particularly like. The rest??? I guess I could post a list and offer to ship them for postage if anyone was interested. I would only list those that are robust.

My dahlias are only a small part of what I do. I have a green house and I plant at least 20 flats of seeds. Plus I usually do some winter sowing. Then there are all my geraniums that I winter over-probably 50 or so. And I am always trying to propagate new things-cuttings etc.

If you posted a sign out front that said, "Free Dahlias", you'd probably have many people stopping by but that could eat up your gardening time unless you put them out in bags, free for the taking. It would save you all the packaging and shipping.

true. Not sure how I will handle it.

Mary, dahlias are sometimes hard to even give away. I've offered them to several people in the neighborhood in the past. Some have told me that dahlias are way too much bother and they'd rather just walk down the street and look at mine. Not exactly my idea of a dahlia-fix. But, whatever!

I'll bet if you were to put a box of them out on the lawn with a sign saying "Priceless dahlias. Please don't touch" someone would steal them in a heartbeat. lol

You're right!

I gave a bunch of mine away to a little girl who wants to start a little roadside business selling the blooms. It's been fun watching for all her facebook posts of her progress. Get em addicted young I say!

I saw four of mine donated to the botanical garden planted in the entry beds. Kind of close together if they do well but that's okay. One is even a noid. lol. The rest will be planted in pots and placed around the garden for more color.

And you are right. I don't know who I would give them to around here. Like your neighbors, Dan, they like to walk around and look at mine, even come into my yard (after asking permission which I was happy to provide) to look closer. I sent them off with about 7-10 nice blooms.

Neighbors love to look and admire but only one takes any dahlias to give to her friends who grow them but won't buy them.

Because my beds are over full this year, I have 20 or 30 that I will need to find homes for. They are all fully growing plants now, so impossible to ship. I have ended up with space to only grow one of each for most of the varieties. My absolute favorites I have in two or three (if I have them), but mostly it will just be one of each. I think I have a couple of colleagues that want some, and I may try some in pots - though I haven't had much luck with that.

I still have about 3 trays of plants that I haven't put out yet. I am waiting for them to grow enough root mass that I am not nervous about planting them in our rainy month, and it has been raining a lot! The plants that are in the ground are loving it and showing new growth right away, which doesn't always happen. Sometimes it seems they just sit there for a few weeks, adjusting to being outside, but not this year. I did spot a couple of buds already forming on a single and couple of orchids.

It seems to have stopped raining, and is supposed to be clear for the next 48 hours - so I should get back out there and get to work!

Motivation is scarce here as well. Still have one tray to go out to be hardened off and a few duds outside that are refusing to grow. I may be putting some at the curb if they all won't fit where I want them...unless they can fit in the iris garden!