As for me, my favorites this year were:

Verda. She was new to me this year and what a fantastic flower and plant. I'm not going to give any of her tubers away...I'm going to plant every one she gives me next spring.
Here is a pic of it along with another favorite, Croydon Masterpiece. Verda is the white one. (The two blonde ones are my MOST favorite of anything.)

Two other favorites are pictured below (a little fuzzily). Kenora Jubilee is the white one and I loved how clean it looked and how it put out a good number of blooms with a consistent size. Rip City is the dark red one here. I loved the velvety red color and my earliest blooms were fairly large. They did get a little smaller later in the season. I'm not sure if that was the prolonged heat of our summers or if it needed more fertilizer. Another thing I'll add about Rip City is that its color never faded in the heat. This is another that I won't be sharing just yet. I'm going to plant every tuber I get.

Another favorite was Tempest. I love the color of this one and the form was very consistent. It was also prolific with good stems. Here is a pic (the white one in the background is Gitts Attention, also a good one for me).

Robin Hood--very pretty and very prolific. A favorite for me two years running. It was even better this year than last. I moved it to a little sunnier locale and it was bigger (plant and blooms) and the blooms' color was deeper. It fascinates me how purple and orange can blend into each other so perfectly in this flower.

Intrigue--Another purplish-orangey blend, very beautiful but a little late and the main plant stem or trunk was crooked. This was probably my fault as I didn't stake it as soon as I should have. Here is a pic of Intrigue:
Lyn's April--a great red ball--another one I won't be sharing next year. This is not a great picture of it though. I should have taken more pics.

Disappointments include:

Alena Rose--her form was not very substantial and she showed her yellow disc flowers way too fast. I'm going to be giving all of my tubers away to a couple of ladies who want it despite its defects.

September Morn--I have to say that after all, I have to admit that I was disappointed in this one because she never looked like the catalog photos or the photos you guys posted. She was always open-centered for me. Even when the weather cooled in late September, she looked more like an August afternoon than a September morn. Here is a typical pic of her (which I believe I already posted in a previous discussion of this dahlia).

Another disappointment for me was Tutti Frutti. She also never looked like the catalog photo as she was always open-centered and a little faded looking. It must not like the heat. Here is a rather good view of it but most didn't look even this good:

Black Satin was disappointing because she stopped blooming in the heat. When she did bloom I did like the flowers though. I also have to add that I don't like Frank Holmes or Bumble Rumble very much. Bumble Rumble did improve over last year since I planted it in a sunnier spot but it still didn't thrill me. It was almost always covered in ants (as was Alena Rose). This pic shows the best bloom I got off of Bumble Rumble this year or last for that matter. It is definitely not representative of how they all looked. I wish all the blooms of Bumble Rumble looked this good.

My biggest disappointment though was the fact that my Hillcrest Kismet tuber rotted in the ground and never sent up anything. I was so looking forward to that one. I'm going to try again next spring, dang it!

So, those are my joys and woes for 2009. What were yours?

Annabeth

My big woe is that we were hit by a prolonged cold snap and there are still 20 dahlias to be dug from the now-frozen tundra. There are piles of leaves over the roots, but I'm not sure what I'll find once I can break the soil with a shovel. There are many duplicates out there, but several I would like to save. Time will tell if they're salvageable or not.

Merry Christmas to you guys and to all who are reading this! Annabeth

Merry Christmas to you as well! I'm crossing fingers for all those faced with travel in the Rockies and Plains, bad timing for blizzards and ice.

Reordered Tempest for this year too and I'm glad I did.

Me, I feel like an utter failure in dahlias right now. I just got back from Swan Island's Dahlia Festival and while thrilled to see their beautiful dahlias, I came home to my white fly-ravaged plants and heat-hit blooms that are only about half the size of theirs (on the same varieties). I have to do some things better than I am. Right now, I feel like their is no hope but to start over next year because my plants look terrible right now. I also wonder if I've got some plants with Aster Yellows, based on some posts on this forum. I guess I'll throw them in the burn pile this winter.

I hope I can turn it around before the end of the season with some Insecticidal Soap spray and White Fly Paper traps.

Cindysunshine--thanks for the compliments. Your name makes me feel like Eeyore after writing the above. I wish I had a more sunny outlook about dahlias right now. I've still got a number of new varieties that haven't bloomed yet due to a late start in the spring. Maybe if I can make things look better in a week or two I might be rewarded with some new blooms. Thanks again and I hope you did rekindle your dahlia passion.

Annabeth

I keep hearing 'summer is over' and just shake my head hoping that isn't true. It hasn't started, as far as I can tell LOL! September is usually my best month for blooms- too many sometimes- but the spiders are already weaving their webs that typically don't show up til October, and there's that annoying chill in the air :(

The only thing to do is start planning for 2011, continue to fight your bugs and diseases and dream of better dahlias. Lyn's April has yet to bloom but to date is 4 ft tall, thanks for telling me the height though.

I know it has been a weird year but I also berate myself for getting a later start than I should have on planting and uncovering the dahlias that overwintered. I also know that I need to feed them more often than I do. I was jump-started back into action after see the Swan Island dahlias. I don't know if the insecticidal soap and the traps will help much but I at least feel like I'm doing something positive to help the dahlias.

By the way, do you know if some tiny green spots on petals might be White Fly eggs? I brought a Wyn's Farmer John into the house and I noticed the spots on about 1/8th of the petals. It was hard to do but I threw it away outside thinking it might be some little baby White Flys that I don't want on my houseplants. It was difficult to throw away the bloom though. Talk about Bee-Yu-Tee-Full. I put it in a silver mint julep cup that has that pretty patina on it that silver gets just before it really tarnishes. So it looked sort of gold-ish as well as silver. It made the bloom look very ritzy. Most of the time I think of dahlias as a beautiful but not necessarily elegant flower. This could have set on the table at a fine restaurant, except for those tiny green spots.

Anyway, thanks again for the encouragement Poochella. I am trying to get to our local Farmer's Market with my dahlias but I don't feel confident enough in the quality of my blooms or even their quantity right now. Even if I could only get there once this year, it would at least be a learning experience for next year. I wouldn't even need to make a profit this year--I just want to get over the hump of starting.
Good Luck to you and your dahlias!
Annabeth