My formal garden is, at least by design on paper so far, very structured with each of the 56 Dahlias having their own space. I'm not looking for them to be any wider than they are tall, and, I'd really like to avoid the stems splitting at the base where the plant then becomes significantly wider. As far as blooms, the advice I've read varies from; "You'll only get one flower if you don't top" through "you must top in order to get early flowers" to "topping is basic grooming that must be done." I've read advice that says it must be done regardless whether you show. But almost every article talks about how the flowers are better and the stems longer, meaning its a good practice for cut flowers...which many Dahlia growers are looking for. I'm not, however, because my formal garden is right next to my sunroom...IOWs my garden is my vase. I've also read, on places like Swan Island, that topping is only done if you want a shorter bushier plant. I don't want such plants, I've designed my beds to accomodate the plant's natural sizes. But then they say if you top you'll get more laterals and blooms sooner, but those I didn't top last year never seemed to suffer. Hence the quandry...is there really truly a *need* to top, or is it simply done to make better blooms or get blooms at a specific time (e.g. show time!) I will be trying to figure out how to best take pictures of my Dahlias once their out. I have a plan to stand on the roof of my new sunroom and take pics from there...;-] Cheers, Russ

I've been reading this but hadn't posting because I don't really have any advice to offer (having our own unresolved behavioral issues). We found out last year that SS's teacher (in complete disregard of published school rules) was rewarding the class with candy if they'd behaved decently. We were not happy. I have no idea why the kids weren't just expected to behave in school (this was second grade at that time) or why the teacher felt bribery was in order for what should just be a normal requirement, but that's what she did. We briefly talked about asking her to not give SS candy, but that didn't seem fair because he's always been well-behaved in school, so not only would he have been singled out but he'd miss out as well. The problem, of course, is that the teacher instilled the belief that sweets are a reward for doing something that they should have already been doing anyway. To compound the problem, DH was rewarding SS with dessert (pudding or applesauce) but only if he ate his dinner - normal enough, but over my protestations because I could see the writing on the wall on this one. DH kept saying that it was fine because SS was so thin (he still is) - I kept saying very bad idea because he especially needs healthy food and not empty calories. And that's where we are - now SS expects sweets at both lunchtime and dinner, and feels cheated if he doesn't get them. He's not yet been sneaking them (he did once, two years ago) but I wouldn't be surprised if it comes to that - because he's now becoming accustomed to getting at least one sweet on a daily basis. If/when that time comes, I'm putting my foot down and completely banning all sweets from this house until we're all sugar-detoxed! It's appalling to me. When SS hardly ever normally was given sweets, he'd hardly ever choose to eat them - we'd always end up throwing out candy from Halloween and Easter. But after his school, of all places, acted like it was normal to eat candy every day, SS has not surprisingly been asking for a lot more sugar products. And we wonder why kids are obese and diabetic at age six now....

yes, we have done all of the above for getting the assingments done and it is like he has caught on to the fact that we wont allow him to just not get it done and we will sit there all night if we have to so instead he tells us he doesnt tell us about the assignement at all... Instead he will pick the easiest thing assigned and do that and say that is all he had to do... Then the next day comes around he lies to teacher... teacher calls us and we find out .. Oh he had a writing assignement to do as well... that he simply just chose not to do.. And we have been in regular communication with BM about this and she seems to be on the same page but not to the same extent... (For example when we picked him up Thursday after getting in trouble again at school he was outside playing... not really getting the point across) I was entirely for cancelling the atlanta field trip. Like I told DH would you rather lose some money now and hope he gets the lessen or continue this circle and end up with him dropping out in a couple of years because he has learned he can do what he wants and get away with it... But, he still decided to let him go and BM didnt want to lose any money either (which is kind of funny because in reality I really paid for almost the entire field trip they both chipped in some but it was moslty paid for by me... but anyways) But, I think the thing that is the most frustrating is the kid is totally aware of what he is doing... Wednesday night BM called DH to get onto ss because he was arguing with her about doing his math work and she was having a hard time with him... then Thursday after all of that drama we find out that he lied to us and then the teacher and had a writing assignement to do as well.. And yes, he has an iep and now he is on special standards and to be honest I think that is the worst thing that could have happen.. He is not dumb by any stretch of the imagination you just have to work harder to keep him on task ... so putting him on special standards to make things easier or give him less work I think is doing nothing but giving him a free pass at being lazy and his grades have done nothing but go down since then... being in special standards they should have gone up... one would think Now we are at the end of the year with only a month left to go... who knows if he is going to pass 4th grade... But, I am at a loss... I feel like his summer is going to be spent in redoing 4th grade with me because if he fails because of this nonsense I am going to be irate and not just with him but with DH and BM as well. And I have given him the benefit of the doubt and thought it was just to hard. I have sat with him for hours going over stuff and helping him and giving him tools to try and work things out... but (like with this writing assignment) it is stuff he has done a hundred times... he knows what he is doing he simply will not do the work. And, apparently this had become a problem in class now too... he just isnt doing not trying not anything except talking and playing and lieing about why he cant... UGHH !! I told him if he didnt straighten up I would be sitting in his classroom everyday to make sure that he stayed on task and when his friends wanted to know why I was there I would make sure that everyone knew I was sitting in there because c doesnt know how to listen behave and do his work...

Yeah ... lots of critical things to consider such as initial and changing pH effects*, buffering, multivalent cations, anionic and cationic micronutrients, and zeolite like ion exchange surfaces on soil particles, which make it a play day for chemistry discussions. Then the attack and breakdown of plant and animal litter to slow release nutrients brings up neat microbiology and biochemistry aspects. Material science then decides to manipulate the situation with osmotic release and diffusion of encapsulated nutrients. And hydroponic principles try to partially play nature taking over the hydrology and lighting it up. Physics kicks ideas in there on this last aspect. For instance did you know that fluorescent light indeed glow when struck by energy (as you know), but much of the light intensity flashes through a series of distinct colors at 60 times a second? * Plants cheat neatly by manipulating ion exchange release of cationic nutrients. They knock off ammonium, potassium, magnesium, calcium and other positively charged ions by producing acid(s) to knock it off. H+ alone can cause the exchange but if the acid is on a small organic base (anion) like oxalate this organic can diffuse around and pull at the cations on soil that the plant wants and help knock it off, helping in the "weathering" breakdown of soil too. Chelators made by plants and microbes make it really interesting too. They diffuse around and hold certain critical nutrients so tightly that the plant has the choice of finding more, having a deficiency (specific nutrient starving), making a stronger chelator to take it back, and/or breaking the chelator down to free the nutrient. Now the fun parts ... the plant one might be considering is not be alone. A group of similar or different roots might be working together AND competing in that patch of soil, with different players at different depths Trees cheat and certain non woody plants cheat and go low. Moles, gophers and field mice run through this soil zone toox playing their games. No soil contact then no nutrient uptake, no root then no nutrient collection there for the plant, loss of stored nutrients and need to spend energy replacing the root. And there are smaller life forms co-inhabating the soil with the roots that are also directly or indirectly effected by soil pH. Let's put them into three classes as those that (1) don't generally effect a plant much, (2) can hurt the plant, or (3) can help the plant. Let's see ... hurting a plant is bad, unless it hurts a seriously competitive plant more. Helping a plant is good, unless it's again that serious competitor. Plants are not stand alone organisms in naturem. They live in community with microorganisms. So what if the soil pH helps support the growth of a microbe that can grow all over your plants roots? Sounds bad I know, but there are those three classes mentioned above. If your microbe is a pathogen that is bad. If it doesn't attack the plant but runs out and breaks down nearby leaf litter, great free food. It it doesn't hurt your plant but by being on root surfaces can compete with and stop pathogenic microbes from getting a foothold, great a free natural inoculation for immunity. There was a company called Eden Bioscience a couple decades ago here in the PNW that made an interesting observation. In large scale evergreen seedling production for forestry sometimes there were large scale fungal blights. Sadly alot of the seedlings all died at once in mass. However, sometimes there were a few seedlings near each other that did not succumb! In fact they looked totally healthy! When isolating bacteria, yeast and filamentous fungi from the surfaces of these plants they found that certain kinds could be grown in the lab that protected seedlings from attack, when sprayed onto them. These microbes grew best in their optimal pH range. They indeed colonized the plants, in this case leaf surfaces. And their presence did protect the leaves from pathogen attack. Obviously similar things must be happening in nature in the leaf canopy and also soil root zone of plants. So when a plant likes acidic pH 5 - 6 soil, is this just because nutrients are more available it? When I went to school, in what now seems like the dark ages, most plant physiology books focused almost solely on this. Or is it because beneficial microbes helping feed or protect the plant need that pH? My firm assumption is that both chemical and microbial pH dependent effects interact to make an optimum environment for that plant. And that some plants in the natural environment survive best, rather than grow best, at their optimal pH range. Why do many fungi sour (strongly acidify) what they are busy rotting? Niether competive microbes nor does the dieing plant tissue like it. The fungus gets more. This is exactly why you want to check the pH in the soil that you might be soon preparing for your new vegetable or herb garden this spring. Too basic, your plants starve. Too acidic, the pathogenic fungi don't starve. Then like the heirloom story of The Three Bears ... there's one pH that's just right.