Oldfatguy said:Waiting for this one to bud.

I'm 6'2. I'm amazed at how slow growing it was then the last three weeks it's shot up.

Andrew, your Allthingsplants name is so misleading. I had pictured you before the above post in your 80's with a protruding belly.

Ditto!

Kousa haha. I feel older than I am I guess.

Some pictures right after work this morning.

I'm not sure what the purple and white are, I'm thinking that was the batch the tag said where dinner plates.

The orange and purple is the color spectacle and I'm not at all mad it isn't solid orange with white tips. The wife mixed a few up so half of them got planted blind.

Not one of my Hawaii's has thrown out a bud yet.

That orange & purple one is great!

Yes. Looks kind of like Firepot but maybe more orange. Too bad you missed out on the names. Do you know what you purchased so now that they have bloomed you could put names to them.

Ditto on Kousa and Pirl. lol Fat old man indeed.

Add me to the list as loving the orange and purple.

I'm still finding a few JBs. I thought they would be gone by now. Not many, no more than a half dozen a day. But they always find the new blooms. Friday morning, I found a few cucumber beetles on the dahlias. I'm not sure how much damage they've done in the past since I've always blamed everything on the JBs and earwigs. Sad thing about the CB is that I've seen them all the way into November in years past. Oh boy! Another plague!

The deer are constantly walking through my garden. They nibble on tomato vines that stick through the cages. But the bigger problem is that they walk through the dahlias. Week before last, they broke three stems off a Kelvin Floodlight, one branch off another plant and completely broke another entire plant. No idea why they feel a need to walk through there. I saw five in a neighbors yard last night. So I decided it was time to "hire" a mercenary. Mr. Coyote stood guard last night. Hopefully, he will keep the deer away. I have another one but couldn't find the stake. I'll try to put it out tonight. I've seen several landscaped office properties where these were used to keep geese off the lawns. The geese won't go near them.

Oberon46 said:Yes. Looks kind of like Firepot but maybe more orange. Too bad you missed out on the names. Do you know what you purchased so now that they have bloomed you could put names to them.

Ditto on Kousa and Pirl. lol Fat old man indeed.

I purchased 1 bag of 4 Color Spectacle (the orange and purple). 1 bag of 3 Hawaii(haven't seen one yet). 1 bag of 4 Dinner Plates, it's kind of generic isn't it?

I assume the purple and the white are dinner plates even though they are smaller blooms than my Go Go Peach(not pictured above).

Of the ones I have the Color Spectacle is my favorite. I don't care if it doesn't look like the ideal coral with white tips.

I saw psudan say the same about his color spectacle.

Over the course of the last few years, I've read on forums or talked to probably a dozen people who have grown Color Spectacle. Not a single one has ever seen the white tips. Whoever packages those tubers for the big box stores is really pushing their artistic license by using that photo on the packages. No big deal because I agree with Andrew that it's a beautiful color as it is.

The orange/purple one is beautiful and reminds me of Firepot.

psudan said:Over the course of the last few years, I've read on forums or talked to probably a dozen people who have grown Color Spectacle. Not a single one has ever seen the white tips. Whoever packages those tubers for the big box stores is really pushing their artistic license by using that photo on the packages. No big deal because I agree with Andrew that it's a beautiful color as it is.

The orange/purple one is beautiful and reminds me of Firepot.

It does have the same colors as Firepot for the most part.

I'll have to find it again and post the link here but I read quite a few threads on Houzz that several people had the same color spectacle as us then 4/5 seasons later it turned to the orange with white tips.

That image looks like it's half the picture on the package and half what we have growing.

Weird, maybe my soil isn't quite right and that altered the color?

Love the coyote, Dan. Let us know if it works.

Now I'm of the age where I enjoy the colors and forms of dahlias without being concerned about names. It feels good! I do have many names but wouldn't be upset by a package of "dinnerplates" without names, regardless of the size.

Santa Claus:
Bahama Mama:
LaLuna:

All beautiful, Arlene! LaLuna is one of my favorites. I've never grown Bahama Mama but there's always next year!

Thanks, Dan. AC Paint is on vacation until the weather cools down, I guess. I still have a lot of short ones that are supposed to be 3 - 4' tall.

I love Santa Claus and miss LaLuna. Nothing new has shown up the last few days. Got a lily Scherazade that just opened. It is interesting how spaced out lilies are. Far more so than almost any other flower I grow. Since Nick dug up my iris and lilies from the rim bed I am in a quandary. They 'held down' each end and the middle with dahlias, poppies and such between. They simply multiply too much so not sure what to put in place of them. Not more dahlias as I like to have the early blooms of the iris followed by the lilies. I may move some Siberian (the ones I have are setosa) because they are more slender and taller. Hopefully won't build a huge clump so fast. Peonies and the larger lilies don't do well in that bed for some reason. Anyway. All off topic. Just ever present on my mind.

Oh, one of my NOT favorites, Red Hat, was quite a hit at the botanical garden. It sits right as you enter the path up to the entry. Really tall. Poor Holyhill Candystripe and one other were behind it and are shorter. I guess everyone wanted to know what the tall red one was. I told them I was going to pitch the clumps this fall but now I guess I will save the clumps for them and they can have a really eye popping display next year. Figure out something complementary to do in front - shorter.

I had a friend send me a picture of a tuber that I gave her this spring. She had just pulled it from the pot last week. It's still firm and has a few little eyes on it, but never grew any bigger than when she planted it in the pot last spring!

Very puzzling.

It was 38 this morning. Brrrr. But nothing wilted, not even the begonias. D has promised to help me today with the mess of a garden. I simply cannot do it by myself. I walk through the yard and see the disaster and just don't have what it takes to begin the cleanup. Got an email from Adelman's and they are shipping the first batch of peonies. Some go to ABG but some I am keeping so I have to just bite the bullet and start digging up plants for pitching or saving and replanting. I still think that going toward more, shoot, what do you call it when you just have a few plants with mulch and such between to keep down the weeds, rather than all sorts of plants, big and little that are impossible to manage. The chickweed on one little slope is boggling. So I will start there. First dig up a peony that did nothing, some lilies (same condition), and a couple of ground covers (small). I have to put a timber at the top to separate the bed from the path along the gentle falls to the pond. I will cardboard and heavily mulch the path (can't do a thing with the stuff in the rocks as I don't date risk treating it with anything that might get into the pond.) Then heavily mulch and dig holes for replanting things. One small bed out of all that are there. Sorry for whining. Arlene, you would bop me for it, as I know you did some extensive work just a few years ago involving brick and such. And you aren't that much younger than I. I remember it was far from easy.

I'm older than you by five years, Mary! Just from Sunday through Wednesday I weeded and we had 13 huge bags for the dump yesterday.

I don't know the term you're looking for regarding fewer plants with space and mulch between the larger plants, along with ditching (and not replacing) smaller, or non-blooming plants, but I've gone that route as well. Could it be the "less is more" idea?

We had our once-in-awhile garden helper trim azaleas, remove a huge Baptisia and hundreds of Louisiana irises, remove vines and weeds, on Wednesday. He also left with a filled truck. Next week he'll be removing unwanted ditch daylilies, a vine that's overtaken a red cedar, and many more Louisiana irises. They've been beautiful but grow much too fast for me.

The time for me is now to make the gardens easier to care for while still retaining the beauty.

Well, I thought you might have a year or two on me but didn't want to take any chances. lol. Yes, what you are doing sounds like what I have in mind. Specimen plants. That is the term. Just came to me. They are not surrounded by bunches of other plants of various sizes, but sort of stand out on their own. And that allows heavy mulching between plants to keep down weeds.

Damien really helped today grinding up a huge pile of green stuff laced with straw. I really need to get going or he will run out of bags, carts, etc to put the grindings. We got the garage cleaned up further and the shed is really shaping up. Feel pretty good about that. We pulled the beans and kale from the raised beds. I have to process the kale and freeze for Mediterranean Kale bread. Still have peas, lettuce and tomatoes. Pulled the drip system, drained and will store for winter.

Grandboys are coming. Brendan is 15 now and his mom is in Fairbanks so I invited them for lamb chops, corn on the cob, and twice baked potatoes. Plus found a small birthday cake.

All of which has not a thing to do with dahlias. Sorry. I will have two new dahlias to post soon. Ferncliff Inspiration andddddd drat. Can't remember the name of the other. It looks a bit like Nutley Surprise, a nice soft rust color.

Hakonechloa is probably my best specimen plant. Now I have six of them and it all began with a very small set of leaves and roots.

You and Damien did a big job. I hope the rest goes well for you.

Here are a few dahlia shots:

AC Paint
Imperial Wine
Maki (not pink at all)