Personally, I do not understand what one is supposed to do with a 14 inch flower and purposely grow my flowers to be smaller than that. Yet some people really seem to enjoy this and even assume that it the purpose of dahlia growing. Reply: Here in the Northwest, dinner plate dahlias are not grown nearly as much as in other areas of the USA. Even the people who show flowers do not grow that many dinner plate sized dahlias here. I have seen shows with over 1000 blooms and only 20 or so dinner plate varieties. At the flower markets in the Northwest(like Pike Street Market in Seattle) you will see 20 or more vendors who sell dahlia cut flowers. Many are the show varieties that you disparage as too hard to grow. There also seems to be a vast cultural distance between the Dutch hybridizers who produce lines like Karma, Melody and Allegro, and the dahlia culture in the Northwest, which seems to be centered around producing flowers for show. I really like the Dutch approach, and also think it may leave American growers who are focused on the comparatively small market for show dahlias out of a much bigger market for dahlias as garden plants. Just see what a good job White Flower Farm has done in sorting through all the available cultivars and choosing ones that will look good in a garden. Reply: You mention White Flower Farm but not Swan Island Dahlias which is the largest grower of dahlias in the USA. They grow 45 acres of dahlias. They do not specialize in show dahlias but in dahlias for all purposes. They sell cut flowers to wholesalers and many times that means as many as 1000 bunches in a day. They ship cut flowers all over the USA. Unlike the Dutch growers, they do not patent their new varieties and anyone can sell them after they get some from them. They sell varieties suitable for any garden from 1 foot tall to 6 feet tall and many have dark foliage too. I grow my dahlias for: - color in the perennial garden from late June to early November - cut flowers I like most dahlias but tend to shy away from ones that have been overly bred for show, and think that some of these flowers look like overgrown sunflowers on corn stalks. Reply: The dinner plate dahlias look as you describe. However, as I previously mentioned very few of the dahlias in the Northwest shows are dinner plate varieties. Most show varieties are excellent all around flowers. I think that I am in a minority in this group. I also think that some of the older dahlias have more deeply saturated color and look more elegant in bouquets due to the color and their thinner stems. Reply: Many of the show dahlias are older varieties too. Kidd's Climax dates to before 1940. Newer dahlias are being bred with much more saturated colors than old timers. Kenora Wow is brighter than any old time dahlia. Sorbet is too. Both are easy to grow. There are many other examples. Comments? It would be really interesting if people said what they really thought . . . without upsetting anyone.

Hi Daniel, Welcome to Garden Web, and the Ohio Valley Forum. You are just in time to think about planning to attend the annual Louisville Sprig Swap. There is another thread started here with the subject line 2008 Louisville, KY plant swap. The hostess has posted it and we are all giving our input in picking a date to hold it. I've listed in that thread many things one could bring if they were short on actual plant material (plants, bulbs, rhizomes, cuttings). Lots of good info in that thread. Also, you have no email link on your member page, thus no one can email you. To set up your email link, just go to the bottom on any page here, and click on Member Pages Then click on Edit your Personal Information, Page, and Preferences You will then probably be asked to login in again. Then check the box Allow other users to send you email via forms at our site. That will place a link on your member page, making it handy for members to reach you in the future. You can also use the Member Pages link to build your Member trading list of Plants and Seeds you either have, or that you are looking for. Sometime b4 the swap, I will be checking everyone's lists to see what I can bring that is listed on member's wish lists. Keep an eye on the Exchange Page here too, as I will be posting about swap items I have to either trade, or just share. Congrats on being a new home owner! How excited you must be. Please tell us a bit about yourself, or your gardening style,wishes, or interests. You can put them in a blurb on your member page...see mine as an example. You say you are trying to reclaim your yard....hmmmm...sounds like you must have some things then...I'm thinking cuttings....Take a walk around, and consider what things you might actually have to swap now, even if it is just cuttings. I'd be interested in knowing what you might have...hint, hint. Sue...in Indiana about 30 miles north of Louisville

This swap is gonna be at my house--128th and Colorado Blvd. For you, up I25 to 120th and then east a couple miles! The location varies, but so far we've managed to have one on the north end and one on the south end each year. That helps some of the people who come from Colorado Springs and other points south, or Ft. Collins and other places up that-a-way! If you haven't already checked it out, the very first post on the swap thread has all the basic info about what happens and how we do it. Re GardenWeb!!! I'm used to the way it looks and how it works, but it's an ancient site, and there are a LOT of problems! As you'll probably discover, you can't copy/paste from Word (or from site to site)--it turns quotes, dashes and other things into gobbledygook, you can't edit or delete posts, things appear, disappear, get stuck, etc! Occasionally people can't sign in! For some of us, our "zones" have morphed into something more "artistic" than useful! (That's what happens when you copy/paste!) And my bio, which really used to be on my "bio page," disappeared, and it won't let me put anything back in---at least not without adding a whole bunch of information that I didn't need to give them when I first signed up! In spite of all those problems, GW really is the best gardening forum on the web, so we all still hang out here! One thing you might want to know, if you start a new thread and want to put a link to something, type in your text and then hit "preview," and then a box will magically appear on the bottom where you can paste a URL and name it whatever you want to. That used to be there BEFORE you hit preview! (If you want to use live links in the text, you need to use HTML code---I think it's called!) And if you're running into the green underlined in-text advertising links, you can disable them by going to the link below and clicking on "disable." That way you don't need to worry about accidentally mousing over one of them and having a BIG, obnoxious box suddenly blocking what you're trying to read! Just a couple Helpful Hints to help you find your way around our Antique site! It really IS the best gardening forum, and I've never found anything else even remotely close to RMG! Hope I haven't scared you away, Skybird P.S. One more Helpful Hint! You might want to get used to copying your text quickly before you click preview! It doesn't seem to happen very often anymore, but every now and then your post will DISAPPEAR between typing it and its actually showing up in the thread! Really bad--especially if it's a long post! If you have it copied, you can just paste it back in and try again! (On the other hand! This doesn't happen much anymore either, but every now and then a post will "duplicate itself," sometimes HOURS later! Keeps life interesting!!!) Here is a link that might be useful: Disable In-Text Advertising!

mariaocean - Can't tell if you were up late or up early - but good Saturday morning!! It was cool this morning (57*) and I really wanted to sleep in, but little Murphy wanted out, then in because he was cold, then out again. Guess it's time to dig out his little winter sweaters for these cool early mornings. The other 2 dogs have heavy undercoats and long hair so they are relishing the cool. Am off in a bit to do some shopping. Normally, I do one big shopping trip per month, but in the last couple of weeks have had to go into town several times. It's 25 miles to the nearest town of any size. I'm really a country gal at heart, so being out here in the boonies suits me just fine. Have a great weekend. :)