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I have wondered about AC Riley. Its good to see a report on it. Do you have some pictures of it? I think it is supposed to be one that doesn't fade badly in sunshine isn't it?
Noni, AC Riley was in full sun, and kept it's bright red color. I have some photos on my laptop which (if I can get to the Verizon store tonight I can post some photos from there) I can't post right now. The only internet I have right now is on my phone. I can load photos from my phone to the computer, but not vice versa. :-(
teddahlia wrote:At the nursery, they start some Dutch dahlias and bring them along until they bloom. Here are a couple of pictures. I was surprised how red the variety Garden Wonder was. It looked every bit as red as the picture. The other one is Pink Star.
It is nice to bring the camera to the greenhouse as I get tired of Margaret taking lots of time to pick out all the plants to buy.
teddahlia wrote:Both of these Dutch varieties were a little over 3 feet tall in the pot. Pink Star is a very flat flower and has a weak center; the other bloom on the plant was open center. And the Garden Wonder also had another flower on the plant that had an open center. The color on Garden Wonder is as good as a red can get.
I can vouch for Garden Wonder as a good true red. Mine have never gotten as tall as 3 feet, usually topping out at 2-1/2', so I may have to go check out your nursery. It has always made a short, stocky plant that needs little or no staking, great for the front of the border. The blooms have been about 6", not the A-size listed for it in the ADS book. The shape of the flower is just like Ted shows, broad and full, not very deep. A very nice garden dahlia.
The nursery plants were staked and disbranched to coax a bloom as a bloom means it will sell. The height under these conditions is not normal. The size of the flower was about 7 inches in diameter and I had no hint that it could be an A sized flower. I had seen this one for sale in the Dutch packs for years and always wondered what it looked like. It was better than what I expected. Having said that, I have a seedling of Black Beauty that has good red color and it grows 6 feet tall.
We like to place a sign on our porch that says: We are in the garden. Really, we are always in the garden.
This is a variety that is unreleased but raised by a friend who sadly passed away last year. Not many are growing it, probably no more than 6 people and it is my first year with it , but I'm hopefully going to get it on the show bench next week and try to get it recognised and get one of the big dahlia suppliers to trial it out and keep his memory going. It's called Birkenshaw Wyn's favourite, a small dec. It's been out in the wind and rain and the occasional hot day, with no fading and very few marks. A little on the small side, about 5 inches for me at this time of year, but I'm sure it will be bigger if grown to flower in September. It's a big plant, massive stems, grown 6 up off a wing bud. I randomly cut 5 blooms, there were more ready, so could have got a better set, but still not bad.
There have been some nice miniature red decoratives released here in the last few years, but we could certainly use another in the BB size range. That one looks great !
