When you are a long time dahlia breeder and you have lots of room for the dahlias, what happens? You end up with lots and lots of older seedlings that you still think are nice and you continue to grow them. They are not the ones that immediately impressed you with their beauty and/or wonderful form but that seem to be relatively easy to grow and every year when we do the garden evaluation(to dig or not dig, that is the question) and Margaret likes some and I like some and a few go bye bye. The operable word here is a "few". So I dutifully planted most all that we kept over. A couple had rotten tubers and they are gone now. A few are really nice candidates and I planted many of their tubers. The magic number for an average one to carry over that we are still evaluating is six tubers to be planted. The really good ones about 10. Better pictures and good records always help. Some earn their way through the process. I always liked a waterlily seedling that was a
nice shade of orange and had "mini" flowers that were about 3.75 inches in diameter or smaller. It always looks good in the garden . It makes nice tubers. It grows about 4 feet tall. In the show world, waterlilies are not classified by size except for the micro class. It is not a 2 inch micro and it is just a small waterlily. When most of the waterlily winners are about 4.5 to 5.5 inches in diameter , the judges are not likely to select a small one. So it is a garden flower, whatever that is. 
