Story number 2...

I ordered this 'dinner plate' collection from Brecks in May. All the Dahlias were on clearance and I couldn't pass up 20 tubers for $30 with shipping.

They were packaged in labeled bags of 2 of each kind. Of the solid ones, all were as expected except the orange "Mrs. Eileen". I only planted one tuber since I didn't have room to plant all of them and orange isn't one of my favorites and this is what I got...

7" or so blooms. I actually like this form and color better but has anyone else had a Mrs. Eileen look like this?

Of the bi-colored; the red "duet" and yellow/orange "Procyon" were fine. I think the "Seattle" (the yellow/white) however, is not quite as I was expecting, not even close...

The "Mystery Day " , dark magenta/white is also a true mystery as the one good tuber I received and planted looks like this...

3-4" blooms. Pretty, but not the right variety I think.

The pink/white "Jean Marie" have been in the ground 125 days and have not bloomed yet! There are 2 blooms that look like they are about 5-6 days away but it's supposed to freeze Wednesday. :(

Good topic. It's one that often comes up, as it is irritating to spend good money and three months of waiting on brown lumps to eventually find you've been given the wrong item.

I would like to make a distinction between types of sellers, if I may. There are two types: distributers and growers.

The distributers simply resell a product that they buy from another distributer or buy directly from growers. From necessity, the distributers must buy in bulk in order to make a decent profit. Most bulk sales in dahlias come from Holland, and many serious growers moan on a regular basis on how bad the average of success is with the correct variety type. The two vendors mentioned above are such distributers, and they know full well that their product will not be true to label all the time. They simply don't care, as even the collection names are rarely accurate, and they know that casual growers probably won't care once they see any type of color, anyways. Terms such as 'dinnerplate' and 'pompon' are mostly meaningless, as they are simply words that have been proven to sell product. Normally, they will give you credit for another product if you complain.

The growers sell tubers they have grown. Typically it's one or two people doing all the digging, labeling, storing and fulfilling orders, with less than a dozen growers I know about that have seasonal employees outside their immediate family. In the U.S., you are sold individual tubers that resemble chicken legs instead of the dusty often-broken mini-clump that the distributers sell from Holland. This is because the growers divide up field clumps from plants for resale instead of mass-producing cuttings in small spaces to sell like the Holland growers. As a result, there is much more variety offered by growers that sell. Although there are still mistakes made in labeling, (we are human, after all) there is accountability as you can normally contact the person who made the error and they will make it right (all the way back to making sure that variety is correctly marked the following year in their beds). Growers typically use correct terms for the varieties they grow, as many of them are show people and take great pride in their product.

Although a buyer can expect to spend a bit more on purchasing from a grower directly, the likelyhood of being happy about the outcome is higher. Nothing is wrong with buying from a distributer, but it helps to know that they are marketing to casual growers who typically don't care about the end result so long as it's pretty. Just adjust your expectations with the lower price point.

Thank you Cici for providing a good explanation of the difference between 'growers' and 'distributors' for us. I've ordered from distributors before and had interesting results, but not so many in one year. Mixes can be fun and the lower price point the distributors offer makes it worth a gamble, sometimes. ;) But, as I mentioned with the pompons, I could have gotten 4-5 named varieties from a grower for the same price. So the moral of that story is if you want pompons, just order specific named pompons! I do love the orange balls. Holding a bloom in your hand is like holding a large orange. They have the best ball form of any of the 5 types I grew this year. Too bad I don't know what it's called, if it even has a name, as I ended up with 4 plants of them!

With the brecks order I'm super happy. So far 6 of the 10 are exactly what they are supposed to be. I like my version of the 'Mrs. Eileen' better than the stock picture. (I would just like to know if this is a typical version/form that the blooms will make or if it may be a different variety.) The jean Marie hasn't bloomed yet but I have 2 big blooms almost there. It got down to 30 last night and I covered them so I'm crossing my fingers at least I'll get to see them this season. For the clearance price of the collection I got a lot of bang for my buck.

That just leaves my 'not seattle' and my 'not mystery day' as 'duds' from the collection. Not sure what to do with them. Oh, who am I kidding I'll just plant them as they are sort of cute.

LOL, love your 'sort of cute' comment.

I started with a discounted $4 bag of a dozen 'dinnerplate' dahlia tubers, and only REALLY got interested in them when I checked online to see if the flat 6 inch blooms came in white or red, as yellow was all that I had gotten. Gosh, the number of color combinations and exotic forms had me hooked before you can say 'that's cool, dude.' Hooked up with a grower online that happened to live an hour from me, who kindly gave me a 'starter pack' of leftovers from his garden (he still gets first dibs from my extras, as that was an incredible gesture). Along with purchases, I went from 8 blah no-names to 40ish named varieties showing a full range of possibilities. Now, growing no-names makes me shudder, as does the thought of limiting my collection to a mere 40 plants. I admit it, I'm hopelessly a dahlia addict.

Gorgeous Dahlias Seranata! I know what you mean Cici :) I started my dahlia adventure from just sowing some dahlia seeds and got hooked. I don't have lot of space to grow them since I am a jasmine addict too but I try to grow atleast 10 dahlias each season..this year bought some named tubers and now want to just keep collecting them instead of the seed experimenting...my dearest husband can't understand my fascination of collecting plants..lol!

I am kept in check by my lack of sun. Growing them at the farm this year under completely different circumstances -- including full, full sun -- was fun and educational but the sales were not good so it's unlikely I'll do it again. We'll see. Having a sit down with the farm owner in a few weeks.