Linlily....you will get both, tubers and lots of flowers this year...a lot depends of your green thumb and mother nature as far as how many but you will get both....you have the right idea, start the seeds and pot them up, then slowly introduce them out doors....start the process in early April so you can have the new plants ready to go into the ground after the last frost, usually around May 1st., the AA or Dinner plates will produce fewer flowers then your smaller types.... teddahlia is right...depending on the conditions around where the seeds were collected, you could get a wide assortment of different size and types of dahlis...kind of like Easter but once your plants are up they will be just as large as the ones from tubers, flower just as nicely and should have nice tubers

Hi Anna, We have the worst pick-axe heavy clay and rocks here. I've made slightly raised beds and I've also worked like a dog excavating out the rocks and clay, replacing with topsoil mix. Raised beds are much easier!!! Over the years I've added 'veggie and flower' topsoil which is 1/3 sand, "1/3 topsoil," 1/3 compost. To that I work in compost every year, mulch with either shredded leaves, hay, or more compost. I added peatmoss the first couple years but hate the way it repels water; maybe digging it in deeper would help your soil and not hinder watering efforts so much. This year I had to squeeze my dahlias a tad closer together and where I'd planted annually before vs digging a hole slightly closer was like night and day: like sandy flour where they'd been before, light and fluffy vs heavier compacted, rocky crud in the new holes. Sand helps drainage tremendously if you have a lot of clay. I used 10-10-10 bulb fertilizer last year, which didn't thrill me so I added Osmocote with a tremendously high Nitrogen level of 19 (tubers lived through storage to tell about it) and lesser amounts of P and K. I like the once-and-you're-done quality of time-release fertilizer and I think Osmocote Veggie Fertilizer would suffice. This year I'm using 10-20-20 lawn food with absolutely no idea how much I should be digging in- going on instinct and hoping my soil will give them most of what they need! So far, so good. No one's croaked except a couple have rotted which is usual. When buds start to form I'll use Mor Bloom every few weeks. That's about it. My one and only beef with Swan Island Dahlias is that their planting directions say "Use no compost whatsoever." Maybe I should send them a rocky clay soil sample and see if they change their tune? Pooch

I bought seven dahliettas last summer. I put six of them in a half-size whiskey barrel planter with good-draining soil (lots of perlite), located where they get full sun most of the day. They were given a good sprinkle of time-release fertilizer over the soil surface to feed them for several months. One went into a garden with marigolds. With deadheading, they did very well right up until cold weather. I dug up a couple to try and overwinter, but they shriveled up (should have wrapped the tubers in saran/cling wrap.) Much to my surprise, though, four out of the five left in the planter have come up and are putting out leaves like crazy in the past couple of weeks. (I'm in Zone 6, but the weather has been more like a z 7 or 8.) The one I left in the garden has come up too, tho' it's obvious slugs or some other critter has been snacking on the leaves, under the pine straw mulch. I'll fertilize them again and hope that they flower this year, too. They really don't get too large, so if you're only planting one, a 6" or 8" pot should be roomy enough. The only thing I didn't care for about dahliettas was that the flower stems were quite short, so that the flowers were often hidden among the foliage. Too bad, 'cause they were very pretty. LindaSkyview

Hurray Poochella! Thanks for those gorgeous (and inspiring) shots--I wish i could post a picture of one of my neighbors houses; they must have over three hundred dahlia plants in bloom right now. It's spectacular! As far as costco bulbs go I've been feeling like somewhat of a gardening cheat lately, buying almost exclusively what they offer in the form of bulbs, or even a few house plants, because you really can't get better prices. And although I know that I should be supporting the non-mega-gaint companies and nurseries I could never afford my garden without it. Anyway....do you remember how many tubers came in a bag? I do plan on starting the mass of my dahlia collection via Costco but I did find some great deals on collections and single varieties at directgardening.com and will likely splurge on some varieties there that Costco may not offer. However, so far this year I have already snatched up litterally hundreds of Fall Bulbs (and some very striking ones at that) from costco already and the selection they had was really not too bad. I'm optimstic their spring selection will be as good. What are your preferred nurseries at this stage in your Dahlia career? Thanks again for all your great info and advice! Green Garden Girl (aka Garden Novice)