You give FF more the benefit of the doubt that I do. I placed one order and was ROYALLY PEEVED! They HACKED the one tree I wanted most. HACKED IT!!!! Another had been hacked previously. I'm still growing the second out of it, and the first I gave up on getting it back to a single leader. Makes me wonder about their true policies. I know others that got less than great quality as well. Same story, some Ok, but some WTH. It is beyond me how they get such good ratings. Another thing to be aware of, is that everything in that order budded immediately. So you have some stressful nights if the temps drop. For this reason, when I ship something in, I ways a couple weeks to see if it's going to buds quickly before I plant them. With that said, you can do as Ken suggested and plant them more upright. If it leans a bit, most trees with straighten themselves as they grow. they most likely got this way from being grown in crowded conditions. All the individual plants grow away from one anther in an attempt to capture more light. So they end up bent every which way. If you steak them, VERY loosely pull them over in the direction you want them, so that they can move around ALLOT. I typically just use the stretch and tape loop it around without tying it to the stem. Has worked nicely for me. To establish a new leader, do a similar procedure on the highest limb. Pull it up vertical with the tip being easily the highest point of the plant. Except this time the steak (use a bamboo steak) needs to be close to the original main stem, and you need to tie it tighter, but don't constrict anything. If you go to a local nursery and look at the larger b&b trees, you can see more or less exactly how they did it. Thing is, you should not HAVE to do this. No excuses. Hope this helped, Arktrees

Congratulations Russ! I think your Victoria Ann looks lovely even from afar, and that glowing lavender with yellow "3rd Place" triple entry catches my eye too. Sorry about the windstorm limiting your choices. That's life in the garden for you. Regarding cutting/keeping cut dahlias. The general drift is to cut into hot water (120-160º) with holding solution or preservative added. Cut stems on the diagonal avoiding a leaf node and put immediately into hot water solution. Let them rest in a dark, cool place for several hours. If the stems are large and hollow you can submerge the stem, poke several holes through to let any airbubbles escape as air blocks water absorption. Don't know if you knew this or not, but others might like the basics for keeping dahlias as well as possible once cut. There are probably other means as well. Plantlady has a good rescusitation tale for a droopy dahlia at a show going into a hot cup of coffee for a little pick me up! Plantlady?

Much of what you say makes no sense at all so reading betwen the lines: By "thick" you mean diameter of holes through the counter,all sinks and counters have larger holes than nessary. Yours is normal. By "gap" you mean the difference between where facuet and counter where facuet passes through hole,not to worry,it is normal and will not effect mounting facuet. The manufacture has assured you it will work,it doesn't get better than that.

Interior doors are typically 1-3/8” thick, and exterior doors are 1-3/4” thick. You can get most interior doors in either hollow core, semi-solid core, or solid core. You want to get the solid core doors if you want to minimize sound transmission. It will be much more expensive to get 1-3/4” doors pre-hung on interior jambs because the door shops are all set up to use 1-3/8” doors on their door hanging machines. 1-3/4” doors also require larger hinges. I’m not sure if regular 1-3/8” interior door latches will work on 1-3/4” doors. If you are only thinking of using exterior door slabs on a couple of interior frames you can just get a carpenter to hang them. If you are looking for a whole house full of doors done this way it will get pretty expensive.