Folks in the Mahoning Valley wanting to see or show off some beautiful flowers this weekend can head on over to Boardman Park Friday, August 25 through Sunday, August 27 for the Mahoning Valley Dahlia Society's (MVDS) 19th Annual Dahlia Show.

The event will take place Friday through Sunday at Boardman Park's Lariccia Family Community Center (375, Boardman-Poland Rd.) 

Registration and staging of blooms begins at 4:00 p.m. Friday and 7:00 a.m. Saturday. The show opens to the public 1:00 p.m. Saturday and 10:00 a.m. Sunday. The event is absolutely free.

Guests can enjoy a variety of dahlia arrangements of all shapes and sizes and even some themes honoring Ohio's roots in a unique way.

MVDS President Harriett Chandler tells 21 News dahlias are a very special type of flower, differentiating themselves from others due to all the different shapes, sizes and colors they come in with Chandler telling us they're in "a class of their own."

For those who are looking to register their own flowers for the show, here's everything you need to know.

Registration will be on Friday between 4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. and Saturday between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Entry tags can be obtained at the registration desk. 

Those with flowers registered in the show will be broken down into the following three categories:

- Novice/New Grower - An exhibitor who has grown and shown dahlias for three years or less.

- Small Grower - An exhibitor growing 1 to 124 hills of AA, A, B and BB size dahlias. 

- Large Grower - An exhibitor growing 126 or more hills of AA, A, B and BB size dahlias.

Note that a novice/new grower may show up in any upper division section, but a small grower may not show up in the novice or large sections except those marked to all and large growers may only show up in the large sections except those marked to all.

All specimen and blooms must be grown by the exhibitor, but a person other than the exhibitor may enter seedling blooms. All entries become the property of the MVDS and may not be removed without the consent of the show committee.

For those who are looking to be a little more creative there's also the artistic design category, which has five different categories all with the overarching theme of saluting Ohio. Exhibitors are allowed one entry per category.

The categories are as follows:

- Manufacturing: Creative, vertical line design. Incorporating industrial components such as metal, plastics, rubber and glass to honor Ohio's rich manufacturing history.

- Agriculture: An arrangement to invoke a "down on the farm feel" to reflect one in every eight Ohioans employed in agriculture.

- Water: A creative design in a low container with 2/3 of water showing to honor Ohio's lakes from Lake Erie to the Ohio River.

- Higher Education: Honoring colleges and universities across Ohio with arrangements focused on those schools' colors.

- Our People: Celebrating all Ohioans with a mass arrangement of different Dahlia forms and varied filter.

There's also the cut flowers category, which involves flowers stored in baskets.

A complete list of the rules for exhibitors and information for guests can be found here.