mINE STARTED BLOOMING IN jUNE AND ARE STILL AT IT. lARGER SIZE NOW THAB EARLIER. hY cLOWN AND A COUPLE OF OTHERS HAVE BEEN LOADED WITH FLOWERS ALL SUMMER AND FALL. sTEVE IN bALTIMORE COUNTY.

I can not speak directly to your area. I live on an island out in the Atlantic Ocean so our weather is controled my the Ocean currents. I have had blooms from May till now. Some of my Dahlias started blooming the first week in September. The ones that bloomed in May were grown inside then moved out side in May. Sams club sold blooming Dahlias at the end of August as fall plants.

I would say that Swan's "late bloomer" means September-October...to them. Consider a planting date of mid to late May. If you can plant earlier, you can bloom earlier. If you start inside, you can bloom earlier again.

All my Dahlias this year were from Swan's. I have had blooms come as early as 73 days, and as late as 216 days. Consider 73 days an early bloomer, and 216 late.

I have mostly stayed away from late bloomers. This fall, however, I'm going to try and start the late bloomers much earlier than the early bloomers in the hopes of "normalizing" them (e.g. getting them to bloom closer to the same time.) This does mean starting tubers in early December for those late bloomers. If you're not up to that, then consider you'll have a lot of green in that spot until, hopefully, just before frost...and then maybe get a full flower (which is usually the 2nd or 3rd bloom) before the frost kills it...hardly worth the effort in my book.

Cheers,
Russ