This one makes me laugh--swirls of pink petals that make even the worst bad hair day look good. It's big--probably a full 10 inches. Thick black stems make it great for cutting and give the plant further visual interest. Maybe not the most beautiful flower, but fun!
What can I say? Small. Simple. Perfect! Plant is only about 2 feet tall, so doesn't need staking. Blooms are 2 inches or less, but lots of them. And the color? Well, I'll just let the picture speak for itself.
Oh my my! One of my last dahlia's to bloom, its also one of the very biggest and most impressive. Flowers are a gorgeous 10" x 7" red with uniformly tipped canary yellow. Plant itself is a little smaller at about 3 feet--surprising given the size of the flowers. This should help if you have a smaller garden.
If you walk through my garden, you will immediately see that I love deep colors--reds and purples in particular. But this flower reminds me of how stunning the more delicate pastels can be. It has an outstanding 5” beautiful peach flower that blends to a soft yellow in the center of the bloom. It's an excellent cut flower, and when cut the yellow center becomes very distinct as the flower ages (yes, we have these in vases all over the house). Plant is 4.5 feet tall with lots of lateral branching which also means lots and lots of flowers.
My favorite dahlia pretty much depends on which one I am looking at in the moment. That said, this one has to be near the top of my list. It's a "water lily" form, and it does indeed look like the bloom you'd see on top of a water lily in a pond. Blooms are probably 4-6 inches, and dark pink with deep yellow at the base of the petals. Plant is large--going on 6 feet tall, covered with flowers. Put in the simplest of terms, I just love looking at it.
I'm a newcomer to dahlias, so there are things I still don't understand. Last year this was pink and white--this year the flowers are pretty much a straight deep pink. I don't know why there would be a second generation difference, but there it is. Still, I don't think the flowers lose anything in being only a single color. This is one of Linda's favorites.
You kind of have to see this one to appreciate it, I think. It's a cactus type, and the form both intricate and perfectly proportioned--I sometimes feel like I could look at one bloom for hours on end. A 3-4 foot plant, the flowers are 4 inches. Though at first the flowers look white, as they mature they become suffused with yellow and pink. Lovely.
Described as a 2 1/2' semi dwarf, it grew big enough to fall over without staking. Blooms are 3" hot fuchsia pink, and it has dark foliage which contrasts nicely. It's an early bloomer, which is also nice because many dahlias don't really seem to get going until later in the season.
A "collarette", this is an old standby and it is easy to see why. It has 5” true red blossoms with a true red collar and petals with beautiful slight curl and point to them. Prolific bloomer once it got going. Plant height is 4’
A relatively new dahlia introduced in 2010, it has large red tipped yellow blooms on a very strong and stocky 4 ½’ plant. On the side yard where it is a bit out of the way, this one still gets people's attention.