Dan - thats reassuring - hope they are as labeled. Bristol stripe is a nice one too.

Dan, that is quite a selection at a single retail source. Not sure I would be able to resist going there frequently LOL
Gary

Gary, the bad thing is how the salespeople twist your arm until you agree to buy them. Like I said last year, I'm going back just to show them that they can't force me to buy more. lol

Dan, laughing at your clever means of showing them who's boss!

Have not ordered any new dahlias this year... yet. Swan Island has had season ending sales (late May) the last couple of years. Maybe then.

Two or three years ago I ordered several season ending sale dahlias that I did not get in the ground until the first week of June. They all did as good or better than the dahlias that I planted in Mid May.

I think that part of the deal is that Michigan, while cold in winter, is blazing hot in summer or so it seemed to me in 1968 when I briefly lived there. It was in the upper 90's (Clare, Michigan) and low 100's and just coming from Alaska I was sure I would expire. Took showers then needed to towel off within minutes of getting out and NOT from the shower. That kind of weather would cause any plant to take off with a shot.

Funny Mary - MI is where my family used to go in the summer to get away from the heat - St.Louis summers are much worse.

Its all relative isn't it?

I spent the afternoon sorting and boxing up tubers to ship off. about half of my trades/sales wanted them asap, so I am taking advantage of the break in the weather - it will be chilling back down here next week.

I have only traveled through St. Louis on my way to Alaska from Tennessee, or to Michigan from California. My only excursion 'outside' except for a flight to Paris, TN one year for a three month visit with my folks. Again, the weather was horribly humid (thought I had been slapped in the face with a wet wool blanket the first time I opened the front door to go outside, and that was in mid-February). We had flown from Anchorage, Seattle, Memphis, Jackson, then 60 miles by truck to Paris and arrived late at night. Both kids were sick. A very miserable trip. Lasted til June and then bought a car and headed home. Blew both rear wheel bearings coming out of Lloydminster at 7am. I simply could not catch a break that year.

That does sound bad. And the drive from TN to AK must have been quite the undertaking especially with kids in the car.

I wish I could say that I was patient but circumstances were such that I was not in the best emotional state. The kids were 5 and 8. I feel guilty for being short (understatement) with both them and my mother-in-law (who insisted in driving with me - thank God!), without whom I wonder if we would have made it - sane and healthy. I have a picture of us sitting by a spring on the 'other' side of the much feared by me Trutch Mountains. My memory was that it was a huge incline and very difficult with snow. The blade operator had just made a pass and told us to go immediately before it got 'cut up' and not to give up my side of the road for anyone coming the other way. It was a dream - just sailed right over. So sardines, mustard and water from the spring was our celebration. Especially after the approach to Haines had been running board deep mud. Too much or too little acceleration would have sunk us for the duration. Made that okay too. But had the high top mud boots behind the seat just incase. Ah well, enough reminiscing . Am proud to have done it more or less by myself when I had never driven 'outside' before. Much less 4300 miles including the Alcan.

It's a nice sunny but cool day with a few snow flurries blowing around. I needed a dahlia fix so I drove to my favorite garden center. Of course, I was just going to look. I was eventually able to tear myself away but not before buying the three 2-paks in the photo. I've never grown Sir Alf before. In the photos I've seen it appears to be huge. I've heard that AC Dark Horse is actually more purplish than red as most photos show. I hope so. Cambridge is one I've grown in the past. Some say it is a sport or first cousin of Akita and I've even seen it occasionally sold as Yellow Akita. Hopefully, I won't be tempted to buy more. I don't want to start tilling up the lawn for more space!

You Go Dan.

I had several boxes arrive last week, and couple more due in the next couple of days. I did a count yesterday and will have just over 200 varieties going in this year (if I can find the space)

That's a lot of dahlias, Geof!

Well, I pulled the bags from the crawlspace. What a job. I laid them out on the garage floor and started going through them one by one. I pitched doubtful ones and then spritzed as they were more dried out than rotten. I just put each kind in a 4-6" pot, sans dirt. I thought I might give them a spritz again before planting. Many (most) have eyes so I am stuck with having to pot them up. I have to unload the other rolling rack as the first one if full now with seedlings of flowers and vegies. Tomorrow my son will help me haul in the plywood for the table and then I can lower the lights from the ceiling and move some of the larger plants from the racks making room for seed trays that need the light all but on top of them. It's going to get really crowded before it is warm enough to move things to the raised covered beds outside but the worst is really over. Just getting them up the ladder and then gone over initially. Where I have lots of multiples I believe I will pot them and then give them to the botanical garden for their annual plant sale.

Mary - I think you said you were storing them in whole clumps this year - did that seem to work well for you?

I am "potting" mine in quart sized zip-locks again this year - big space saver, easy to label, and 90 for less than $5.

It worked great last year until I put them out on the screened porch and it rained. When it rains this year they will go under the table that is out there, or back inside. I drowned several that never really recovered last year.

I really did only some in clumps. Especially ones I really didn't want to chance losing. Mostly they did okay. As did the tubers but I suffered more dessication than usual. Course I didn't put anything in the grocery bags to prevent it. And still had some rot. But I have lots of sprouting tubers and may multiples so I can't complain. Better than having to buy all new, however much fun that would be to have all new flowers.

I don't know what I will do this fall. Depends on how I am feeling and what the weather is like. I do know that I will let them stay in the ground at least two weeks after frost has killed the tops. The danger is if the roots/tubers are too close to the surface and the weather gets so cold as to freeze the tubers. Guess I could mulch them just in case. Yuk. Here I am planning for storage and I hardly have mine out of last year's storage.

Nothing wrong with planning ahead, Mary. Especially if things aren't exactly right. After I saw so many of my tubers shriveling a year ago, I vowed that I would saran wrap a lot of them when I dug in the fall, no matter if it took longer. Plans are made to be broken but I ended up wrapping about 1/3 of them. As far as I can tell by looking through the clear wrap and feeling them, they seem to be doing alright. I've only found two rotters so far. I don't have the pre-wrap dryness factor down pat, like Geof does, but maybe I'll eventually learn.

The ones I stored in entire clumps looked okay a couple weeks ago. I haven't checked since then. I didn't wash any dirt off when I stored them in plastic bags. I recently read where someone said they actually added a couple handfuls of dirt to the bag thinking it would help hold just enough moisture/humidity to help prevent shriveling. I just don't have room to store well over 100 clumps that way.

There are a lot of opinions about whether to wait for a frost to dig the tubers. I read that Ted Kennedy says waiting for a frost isn't necessary because the tubers will have cured by late fall. If I had waited for a frost this past year, I probably wouldn't have dug until after Christmas. A couple years ago I waited and the first thing I knew I was digging through 8-10" of snow before we ever had a frost. lol

I bought my tubers in Lowes and Walmart, planted the whole thing with the idea in few years I will split them in half. I just planted 11 tubers and posted them with metal posts , painted the post green, I hope my neighbors won't pull them up to sell them for scrap metal. I have high hopes the dahlias will be better this year, since I learned some new things about how to grow them.

Good luck, Etelka. We'll all be hoping for your success and many wonderful photos.

I've ordered and received Bishop of Llandaff from Brent and Becky's. It's resting in a pot currently,
along with Lucca Johanna, a Walmart purchase. Our local Walmart had lots of dahlias this year
and I keep eying them each time I visit. Their stock of roses was pretty much depleted by the
time I got serious about buying, though. I did get Queen Elizabeth.