I found Leota Mace to be a bit slow and sparse on blooms, but it was also partially shaded by a bit taller neighbor. I am going to regrow it for another year.

You might like That's Jake: a very intriguing maroony bronze, gauzy maroon, faded wine colored, fine beaujolais colored? Impossible to describe and even more difficult to depict digitally. It is no where near formal- informal and lovely in a medium size.
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Wine & Roses- a gorgeous waterlily --white with fuschia edges. There's a picture of it in our "Dahlias" from all over album on page 7. Click on the picture to see it close up. It gives lots of blooms on a not too tall plant- about 3 1/2' or so.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dahlia Albums

Thanks :)

I'm quite taken with one called Fremont's Memory, actually. Anyone have any experience with that?

BTW, I am a dahlia novice -- I remember that my mom had some unidentified dahlias in the yard when I was growing up, but I think they came with the house!

Kristin

Here is a link that might be useful: Fremont's Memory at Swan Island

Hi girlndocs - Check out Thomas Edison - I got him to try this summer. It's an old heirloom variety that is just beautiful! My neighbor had it last summer - I was so jealous!
A

Here is a link that might be useful: Swan Island Dahlias - Thomas Edison

Hey, grdngrl, in your experience is Thomas really as purple as the page at Swan Island shows? I saw them at Fred Meyer today and remembered you mentioning them, so I grabbed a pack ... but the pack photo is more of a rose-purple, which is the color I want, as opposed to the purple-purple at Swan Island.

Hmm, Dave's Garden photos also show more rose-purple shades ...

Kristin

It's one of those hard to capture in a photograph colors. It wasn't as purple as the Swan Island picture. It's more of that purple,mauve,burgundyish color. It might be a little bit darker than you want, but it is really pretty! Sorry to hear about your CdM Rose. : (

I'm going to give him a try. I have pink-shade lilies in that same bed, and plan on putting kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate there too, so I think with Thomas and some wine-colored coleus, it'll be a really dramatic wine and pink late-summer bed.

It's a funny thing, when I Googled it, so many of the commercial pics of Thomas Edison were obviously photoshopped to be more purple/blue toned. But the amateur photos uniformly showed more of a magenta shade, so I figure I'm good.

Kristin

I had to give up on the Fred Meyer tubers. After a week under a warm light with damp peat moss I still couldn't see a single eye :( So I ordered another Thomas from Swan Island Dahlias and I'm going to return those others.

Krista