Oooh, now I think I'll have to get Jitterbug! As to getting blooms already...I start mine in pots in the garage, then they move to the house when they get above the dirt, then to the greenhouse, and then outside the end of May/beg. of June. I have at least 6 or 7 that generous gardenwebbers sent me that I probably won't see blooms on this year. If we don't have them started early, we don't see blooms until the end of summer, and even though they are beautiful, it just isn't worth the garden space for only a week or two of bloom. Bahama Mama is actually much prettier than the pic I posted...for some reason some of the mauve came out brown with my Iphone.

One of my favorites which comes to mind is "Summit Festival".I don't seem to have a picture on file of that one, but it is a bb, white tips, soft orange petals, with a raspberry line separating the two colors. Another is Bahama Mama, a Dahlia from Swan ISland that is banana yellow shading into mauve. Always pretty ones on that bush too and the colors are unusual enough to get attention. For a big pink, I am really enjoying my "Enid" that I bought at Costco this year along with Ice Cube. IT is a B sized flower with tall sturdy stem, pink with yellow glow in the center, a very nice dahlia.. Actually. the pic I Put up as Enid I think is Swan's Dessert Storm, which might work too but needs good sunshine to bring out the colors. Can't figure out how to delete it and try again by using the new Image file upload.

Hey Linda, I can see why you love looking at them. I only have two that are blooming and one is a simple white and the other one, well two, that are almost identical. They both bloom pretty good but I am still having trouble keeping them upright. The tomato cages are working ok but they were already pretty tall before I put them on so I kinda messed up half the plant putting them over the plant. grrr..... I haven't taken many pics of them due to it not looking real pretty with part of the plant laying on the ground and the other part standing nice in the cage. lol!! I think I am going to cut off the part still outside the cage just to clean up the area a little. I had decided I was going to just give up and give them to my sister since I had the hardest time keeping them staked but then they started blooming and I changed my mind. lol! This is why I am hounding you about how you stake yours. heehee!! My ground is so hard in most of the areas and it makes it hard to get a stake in good enuf to keep standing when they get so tall and bushy. Plus they are already in the ground and I don't dig them up because they do return every year. I really liked how your stake looked compared to my ugly tomato cage so I may try that next year again and just try to get it in the ground good enough so it will stay upright. Thanks again for your tips and if you have anymore please feel free to let me know. I never fertilize mine either so if you have a feeding program I would love to know that too. Good grief you might as well come to Georgia and grow them for me. haha!! Judy

I have a bud that just broke on one of the hybrids, from the Archeri x White Angel, it is dark purple, very very tiny flowers, maybe less than 1inch … the others have buds but nothing else has broken open yet. I’m happy to see that white parents produced color, archeri is blood red so I’m very interested now to see the open flower some have crazy leaves too, one of the berigated ones made it, the leaves look really unhealthy