Cafe au Lait Dahlia - Late Arriving - October 2026

A couple of days ago, I posted some photos of the first few Sweet Nathalie dahlia blooms that have (finally) opened up on my lone (single) Sweet Nathalie decorative dahlia plant.  I talked about how it was *very* late arriving, but I wasn't quite sure why it was so far behind.  Not enough light?  Perhaps.  It is tucked in amongst some grasses and hydrangeas and didn't get the best access to the full, open sky.

But, I also have another late-arriving dahlia.  And, this one is even FURTHER behind Sweet Nathalie.  And, it doesn't suffer from the same light conditions.  Rather, this one is situated in a good spot.  Just a few feet from other, well-grown dahlias (aside from the spider mite damage...).  But, it has a different issue:  a late start.  

That dahlia is the one that started the whole dahlia craze (at least, I think it did?):  Cafe au Lait.  

I wrote a post in late May about how a couple of my tubers weren't viable.  Were "blind" as they say.  That means they either don't have 'eyes', or the eyes on them never grew a stem/sprout.  So, when I reached out to the grower, they offered replacements.  In one case, the variety that I originally ordered wasn't available, so they offered a Cafe au Lait as a replacement.  

I decided to start the (late arriving) Cafe au Lait in a nursery pot.  But, it was more than 21 days behind every other tuber in the garden.  I planted two of them.  One of them didn't make the transplant.  But, the other went in the bed along the house on the southside.  Near the espaliered Crabapple trees.  

And, it didn't grow much.  At all.  Just sort of stayed short.  And, not a lot of foliage.  The rabbits tried to gnaw at it, but I protected it with chicken wire.  Still, all Summer, it stayed knee-high.  All the way through August and early September.  

Then, it started to grow.

I posted this photo three weeks ago when it started to put on some foliage.  And, speculated that perhaps it was putting its energy into tuber production?  I'm not sure, but after a few weeks of steady foliage growth, something else happened:  Buds appeared.  And grew upwards on medium-length stems.

The buds are big.  Dinnerplate dahlia big.  

After a few days, they began to open.  And, they're just like everyone says:  pale, blush pink.  And stunning.  Here, below, is my first (ever) Cafe au Lait Dinner Plate Dahlia flower:

Cafe au Lait Dinner Plate Dahlia flower

You can see in that photo above that there are few more buds chasing this first one.  Longfield Gardens has this to say about them:

..."among the last plants to reach full glory"

But, also..."Cafe au Lait dahlias are quite prolific once they get started."

Well...I'll be the judge of that.

The good news it that we haven't had a frost (yet).  And, the next week looks good, too.