No answer for you Linda, but out of curiosity, I have to ask where you bought your seeds? I know I looked into buying seeds a couple of years ago & was told you could not buy them. Apparently large flowered dahlias tend to be VERY variable in bloom, with most seedlings having no petals or other odd looks. I know with smaller bedding dahlias you will get bloom the first year, & they will for good tubers if they are nice healthy plants. Don't know aboutthe dinner plates.
If they work out for you let me know!

Good luck as you will need it. Dahlia seeds are extremely variable. I got some from a large nursery and they were said to be from dinner plate dahlias. I grew about 100 plants and not one was a dinner plate sized dahlia. Largest was about 6 inches in diameter. Most were open centered and good for no purpose.

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

Thank you teddahlia and groall for your input. Growing dahlias from seeds sounds like it could be a lot of fun. I've grown daylilies from seed before, but dislike doing it because it usually takes 2 to 3 years to see any flowers from them. I'm more impatient than that!

Linda