Well I'm right there with you on the SLOW thing. I didn't get many in the ground until June I guess, but it seems really pathetically slow this year. Our weather has been wonderful so I don't know the answer. When I prepared my pots for dahlias I had a big pile of my wormy compost, some topsoil comprised of about 1/3 sand and good potting soil. I mixed those 3 things together along with Soil Moist crystals and planted in that. They were the first or near the first flowers to bloom, but the pots are black and soak up sun/heat like crazy. Maybe more compost next year? I don't think it could hurt if mixed in well and worms are good! The only tubers I've seen worms bother are already rotting ones.

I like all dahlia colors. Never used to want red (mostly to keep down the numbers of flowers in my beds) now I have all kinds of reds and just ordered more LOL. Way back when I started out with Chimacum Topaz and a very miniature orange dahlia, then realizing there were thousands more shapes colors and sizes to choose from, I stuck with oranges, bronzes, yellows to "match" what I had growing. Then came the purples, lavenders, whites, pinks, later the reds LOL..... you know how it goes! I'm sure Susan Ambrose has forgiven you. A college friend had me over to their newly bought home. We toured from room to room while she lamented about the former owner's hideous color schemes in various rooms and the work involved in redecorating. The kitchen was behind a swinging door so when it opened, we were assualted by the most hideous smothering blue. Of course, I empathized with just how hideous the kitchen was..... only to have her tell me "I know. This didn't turn out like we had hoped!" LOL My bad.

Swan puts a disclaimer in their catalogue about their pics sometimes not matching due to pre-press ink colors etc. But I have had every experience dealing with names and colors that everyone here posted and I am convinced some dahlias are just hard headed. I had (the equivalent of) Awe Shucks (from Connells?) bloom last year and it was so YELLOW after the first bloom that I moved it from the orange section to the yellow section this year. So what does it do? It's been every bit the orange I thought it was supposed to be originally. I only moved it 8 feet away - same soil, ground, feeding and watering. I planted a store bought smallish rust orange tuber, planted it in the orange section in the ground and it barely bloomed at all last year. Got perhaps 6-7 small flowers. Color was 'muddy' - not at all what I thought it was supposed to be. So I moved it to a container in the 'graveyard' and this year it has been spectacular. Numerous blooms off a taller plant with rust orange blooms starting out reddish orange. The bottom line (IMHO)is that like others have said, so many factors can affect size, color and hardiness that I suspect few identical dahlias look and grow the same in any 2 gardens. I've learned to be patient (up to 3 years of no blooms even) as long as the plant looks healthy and simply accept what you get. For a color coordinated gardener like me, this advice drives me nuts but it is reality in a dahlia world. Dahlias just aren't like roses which always look like the box! DCR

Labland that may be a Hawaiian Flag you have there. Here is a link that might be useful: