I agree wholeheartedly with tiffy (and by the way your gardens look wonderful). Mulch serves many purposes in the landscape and one should not overlook its use in this day and age when drought and water restrictions are in the news all the time. If you are lucky enough to live in an area where water is not an issue now or where mother nature is currently supplying you with sufficient moisture so that you don't have to irrigate, that is nice. But with changing weather conditions, you might never know when all that could change. Mulch helps prevent water evaporation and your need to apply it to keep your flowers and plants looking good. It decomposes over time to improve the soil structure to help the soil hold onto the moisture it does get. It is readily available by collecting fallen leaves, community giveaways by those cities that collect fallen leaves and then compost them and either give it away or sell it, and often tree trimming companies will give chipped wood away for free (my local utility company gives it away free when they clear limbs from the power lines). I for one would not consider a garden complete without a nice layer of some type of mulch to conserve moisture, improve the soil, and keep weeds down. Too me it would be like going out into public wearing loads of jewelery without any clothes on! LOL

Thanks for the advice, Penny. My dozen new plants were also sown from very fresh seed and sprouted readily. I had never thought about a gravel mulch, so that's one thing that you're doing differently from me. In fact, they really weren't mulched at all, so that could be the difference. Or, I guess we can't rule out that you have an earlier blooming strain, but then why would it just be some of your plants? Then again, genetics can do odd things. About the trumpet vine, Steve, everything Penny says is true, and yet I have a fondness for the plant. It is an awesome hummingbird attractor. I have a yellow flowering one, (the orange/red ones are better, though) which was planted many years ago against the house (gulp!). Fortunately, I don't think it's heavy enough to take our house down, but it does do irritating things like grow into the shutters, and gets under the aluminum siding on the upper floor. I just keep after it and hack it out when it misbehaves, and no harm has been done to our house. Most people would not want to have to bother with that sort of maintenance. I guess I'm sentimental about it because it's the plant that started me on my hummingbird addiction. A couple of summers ago, I saw a hummer feeding from it just outside our window, and decided to hang feeders from the vine. The rest is history, as they say! I've since added and continue to add more plants, but still have a soft spot for that lovable monster. It does take many years to reach blooming size. I had just about given up on mine, but it did finally bloom. When the hummers feed from it, their entire head disappears into the huge flower! I would highly recommend it, though, if you don't mind waiting for it, but with all the caveats that Penny mentioned. That's an interesting thought, Christie, about the columbines. The reserve is about 20 miles southwest of us, and is a little warmer than we are. I've noticed that the same plants bloom earlier there than here. I was assuming the columbines wouldn't be blooming yet, but perhaps I should take a trip over there and look for them. If they're really an earlier blooming strain, they might already be in full bloom. Of course, it would be awhile before I could harvest the seeds, but it would be interesting to see if they were blooming now. If only some were, maybe I could tie little pieces of colored yarn around the stems of the early ones. At the same reserve, I've also seen what I think are Monarda fistulosa, with pale lavender flowers. I don't know if I could find them again, but I think they're a hummer flower. Maybe I could get seeds from those later in the summer.

I winter sowed them sometime around late January this year. It's technically a perennial and will bloom the first year from seed but so many references say "short lived", I wonder if most will end up being annuals for me. The one with tuberlar petals in the first photo was the earliest one to bloom. It started around late May and has been blooming off and on all summer. I have some that don't even have buds yet, but in all fairness, I think those are getting a little too much shade and root competition from my tulip tree. I've seen a lot of good comments from people growing Arizona Apricot so I'm really hoping those come back next year. Mine are still small.

Engrgirl, there can be a great deal of variation in bloom times from one dahlia to another. I grew 30 different dahlias here in CO this year, and the first bloom on one of them was around the end of July. Another one, treated identically didn't offer the first bloom until mid-September, with the others falling in between. It was a season with a late start because of lots of cold rain in May, so I didn't get them out until late May. I agree with cici that more shade will only make your problem worse. Did you remove the plants from the pots when you planted them? I've had good success in past years by starting the tubers in big 2 gallon pots, drilling lots of holes in them to allow big roots to make their way out, and setting pot and all into the ground at planting time. I would recommend digging some balanced fertilizer into the soil at planting time, especially in new, sandy soil that doesn't already have anything in the way of nutrients. I have well drained soil and have to water my dahlias almost every day. It's also a good idea to put your supports in the ground at the same time as your dahlias. I use five-foot long rebar. If your plants were already flopping over to the ground at two - two and a half feet, it sounds like they were either already stretching to reach more sun or subjected to a lot of wind. If your soil is really sandy, it may not be holding the water and nutrients well enough for the plants to make use of them, in which case some added organic material such as peat moss or shredded leaves worked into the soil might help. I hope you may find some of this helpful.