Why I Oughta...

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...

In what is probably the final week of my dahlia blooms, I have one plant that is (finally) producing its initial blooms:  Sweet Nathalie.   Last year, I saw my first Sweet Nathalie bloom in early September and talked about how it is a 'slow to bloom' .  This year, the blooms came in mid-October.  Five or six weeks later than 2025.   But, what do they look like?  They're pretty great: Sweet Nathalie Decorative Dahlia Bloom - Blush Pink Sweet Nathalie is billed as a dahlia that compares with one of the dahlias that everyone loves:  Cafe au Lait.  Here's what Longfield says about Sweet Nathalie : If you love the colors of Cafe au Lait, this dahlia is a must-have. Sweet Nathalie walks a similar line between buff and blush pink, but its flowers are about half the size of Cafe au Lait and the shape and color are more consistent. What's interesting about that (for me) is that Sweet Nathalie is my second slowest-to-bloom dahlia.  The one th...

Two days ago, I described the Saint Martin Waterlily Dahlia plants as my most productive dahlias of the season .  Today, I'm showing an update on my LEAST productive dahlia:  Cafe au Lait.   I didn't intend to grow Cafe au Lait this year.  Some of the tubers that I ordered from Longfield Gardens weren't viable, so they send a pair of Cafe au Lait tubers as a replacement.   They arrived three weeks after every other dahlia tuber was started (and had produced new growth), so these started behind from the beginning. I planted two.  One in the Pizza Oven West bed.  And one in the sideyard.  The Pizza Oven West dahlia died.  Suddenly.  One of those things. The one in the sideyard started slow.  And, kept growing slowly.  All Summer.   I was knee-high in August.   Now, a the beginning of October, it still hasn't bloomed.  But, it has put on a bunch of foliage in the past few weeks.   Cafe...

A few of the tubers that I ordered turned out to be not viable.  And, they were sold out of a like-for-like variety, so they offered up a replacement based on their current, in-stock inventory.  I went with something I've never grown, but is pretty well-known:  Cafe Au Lait dahlias.  See below for the tuber and the package that they arrived in recently: I haven't (in the past few seasons) grown any Dinnerplate Dahlias, so this will be a new (to me) experience in terms of size and staking.  Here's what Longfield Gardens says about C-A-L : Cafe au Lait is the variety that launched today's dahlia mania. These big, romantic blooms are must-have for anyone who loves flowers. Cafe au Lait's blossoms are wonderfully variable in hue depending on weather conditions and time of year. You can expect flowers ranging from creamy yellow and bone through blush pink and rose. They are a fabulous cut flower, and like peonies, it takes just a few stems to make an impressive arran...