I forgot to add the 'Charlotte' has a nice perfume and rather large flowers. 'Joan Senior' starts flowering in July and then goes full-bore until the cold weather arrives. My clump needs division this spring. This is a frugal year for my garden--no new plants--so I will make do with the free gift from my own garden and plant new Joans elsewhere. Thank you, everybody.

The only one I have on your list is Oranges and Lemons. It has a few inches of green cane right now. You might have trouble trying to keep it in a pot anyway because it likes to get quite large for me, and it was new last year. I don't know how big it is going to get this year. I didn't do any winter protection but I had a large amount of snow.

My experience tells me that 1) dahlias are very different in their growth habits 2) Height is unpredictable 3) Bloom times are very different. It all depends on the varieties you are growing. Generally speaking, larger blooms take a longer time to develop; and cactus varieties generally bloom quicker. But even that is not a science. As far as plant height - I planted all mine within about 3 days; and now have some plants just peaking out of the ground; and others with buds!! I'm dabbling in exhibiting dahlias this year and have tried to read everything under the sun about how to time out dahlias for shows. I haven't found any solid way to predict yet. The best advice that I have learned is to just grow a variety and take really good notes (planting dates, topping dates, first bud, first bloom, # of leaf pairs you left when you topped, # of leaf pairs from bottom of plant to bloom etc, etc,....) My wife makes fun of my excel spreadsheet dedicated to my dahlia plants. There is a payoff - If you grow the same varieties the next year you can plan when to plant, when to top etc. I'm following more of a plan this year according to some of the varieties I planted last year (i.e - if it took 57 days for a plant to bloom after I topped it; I know that I should top that variety about 57 days before the show) That's probably more info than you needed unless you really want your dahlias to bloom at a certain time.

Sara-Ann, your roses are gorgeous! I think we do have to try to be philosophical about the off-year, or partial off-year, and then celebrate the good ones all the more. For me, this has been a strange one. Early spring was horrific, with that late cold that destroyed every flower on my oriental wisteria (honestly, that one made me cry, literally - it was covered in buds and in one night, every one of them shriveled and died). Then, rose season was great - I felt like they were more beautiful than ever, their companion clematises were spectacular, and I had earlier delphinium bloom so some delphiniums with my roses! Also, the poppies and larkspur were the best they have ever been for me, tall and gorgeous, and my beloved dame's violets were super-prolific. And I think I finally got the "garden room" thing to work. But then ... summer has been pretty bad. Its been so hot, and very dry, most of the roses are getting fried badly if they bloom. It seems like the really nasty weeds are more prolific than ever; I can't keep up with them! The best I can do is to keep them from totally swamping things, and between that and watering I don't have time to do much else in the garden (and its been so hot I can't say I wish I could spend more time, not to mention the mosquitos are awful this year!) I usually have tons of cosmos blooming - this year, hardly any; I think the late cold killed most of the seedlings. Also, we have a crop of adorable but voracious baby bunnies, and I think they ate a bunch of them (not to mention my pole beans). My tomatoes are sub-par, and for some reason, my dahlias are only now coming into bloom, and most of my hydrangeas did nothing (again, I blame that late cold). Finally, I lost one of my beloved Capt. Samuel Hollands (a big beautiful one) to horrid RRD. So at this point I'm just hunkering down and hoping for rain and cooler weather! And I'm trying to remind myself that ups and downs are just a natural part of gardening, and of life. And though we all get discouraged sometimes, things change - good times will come again!