Wow! does that look enticing. Guess I better start getting mine set up and plant a few seeds. Steve in Baltimore County'

Glad you posted your progress Viking. I was about to ask how your and Russ were coming along with winter-grown plants. Looks like you've got plenty of growth in that pot.

What kind of plan do you envision for that dahlia i.e. when will you plant it outdoors?

Wonder how Russ is doing with his winter nursery under lights.
Russ, are you able to offer an update?

Thanks for letting me know you are interested poochella. That plant you see was cut back once. I will keep this in the house till April. Then it goes into the poly house. Last move out in the garden all in bloom. Drives neighbors nuts. They run to the garden centers and buy hundreds of plants. All little tiny blooms. I call them Ford Escort flowers. Except my next door neighbor. She bought a boxes of flower seeds for a dollar. Then she saved the seeds from the first year. Planted individul gardens around her house. Her deck had one side covered in cosmos. The other side of her house had a huge marigold garden. All from that dollar garden. You got to love it. I have that same dollar box of seeds. I planted them in small boxes that I made. Good gardening this year will be the best. Most of my tubers are doing great and have sprots where the eyes were.

I have a suspicion you're going to convert your neighborhood from Ford Escorts to Cadillacs one day soon Viking. I hope your dahlias grow as planned. I had to pull a couple rotters out when checking tubers and was suprised to find sprouts already: in total darkness, in the chilly tuber room. They are amazing!

Cosmos can be lovely and reseed freely here too. Marigolds: I think a big silent siren sounds and every slug from a mile radius slithers over to eat them down to the stems overnight. I had to give up on those years ago unless planting in a rail-rider planter high on a deck.

Continued luck with your early starts.

Glad to here that Marigolds attract slugs. I will plant some just a little bit away from my dahlias. May be this year I won't have to go out in the middle of the night with a flashlight and a spray bottle. The neighbors must think I am some kind of nut running around with a flaslight in the middle of the night. Of course they would never say any thing to me because they all get bouquets.