This year’s contestants. All vying for the crown. All demanding full sun and emotional support.
Every spring, I swear I’ll grow fewer dahlias. Every spring, I lie.
This year was supposed to be reasonable. Controlled. A small, manageable number of dahlias that wouldn't require a spreadsheet, and whatever dark magic is need to keep earwigs at bay.
Instead, I now appear to be hosting the 2025 Dahlia Pageant — a competitive horticultural event featuring 21 extremely high-maintenance plants.
These are the contestants. They all think they’re going to win. They are wrong. Even I don't know who is going to win this year.
Dahlias 2025
Returning Queens
The gals that have been on my stage before. The blooms I've grown before that made me want to grow them again.
👑 A la Mode
👑 Rock Star
Alias: Dairy Godmother
Soft serve looks, hard freeze attitude.
🌸 Bloom Type: Formal Decorative
🎨 Colour: Coral-orange with creamy tips
📏 Size: 6–8"
📐 Height: 5 ft
Alias: Petal Pusher
Prolific & persuasive.
🌸 Bloom Type: Anemone
🎨 Colour: Deep cranberry with fuzzy cushion centers
📏 Size: 3"
📐 Height: 4 ft
👑 Fundy Esther
👑 Alpen Cherub
Alias: Bayoncé
Rooted, revered, and matriarchal. Tides rise when she enters the garden.
🌸 Bloom Type: Orchette
🎨 Colour: Purple/Pink
📏 Size: 5"
📐 Height: 3-4'
Alias: Glow Job
So bright, so pure, so suspicious.
🌸 Bloom Type: Collarette
🎨 Colour: White with soft yellow center
📏 Size: 4-5"
📐 Height: 3–4 ft
👑 Cornel Bronze
👑 Yvonne
Alias: Dependahlia
Always shows up. Always looks decent. The flower version of a reliable friend with a truck.
🌸 Bloom Type: Ball
🎨 Colour: Rich bronze
📏 Size: 4"
📐 Height: 3.5 ft
Alias: Missed Sprout
Unpredictable. Sometimes grows, mostly doesn't. Worth the drama.
🌸 Bloom Type: Waterlily
🎨 Colour: Peachy sorbet orange with yellow
📏 Size: 4"
📐 Height: 3–4 ft
👑 AC Paint
👑 Black Satin
Alias: Miss Jackson Polliflora
Every bloom is a guess.
🌸 Bloom Type: Informal Decorative
🎨 Colour: White with magenta striping
📏 Size: 8"
📐 Height: 5 ft
Alias: Mourna Lisa
She’s not sad. She's plotting.
🌸 Bloom Type: Formal Decorative
🎨 Colour: Near-black burgundy
📏 Size: 3"
📐 Height: 6 ft
👑 Kelsey Annie Joy
👑 Cafe Au Lait
Alias: Little Miss Sunshine
Your guileless friend.
🌸 Bloom Type: Collarette
🎨 Colour: Coral with yellow center
📏 Size: 3.5"
📐 Height: 3.5–4 ft
Alias: Influenzia
Started the trend. Has a book deal and a signature candle.
🌸 Bloom Type: Informal Decorative
🎨 Colour: Cream to blush, depending on mood
📏 Size: 8–10"
📐 Height: 4–5 ft
👑 JS Jenny
Would you like to save this stuff?
We'll email you this post, so you can refer to it later.
Alias: Biggie Bush
Too big to fail. Comes with her own gravitational pull.
🌸 Bloom Type: Informal Decorative
🎨 Colour: Orange-copper
📏 Size: 8–10"
📐 Height: 4.5–5.5 ft
New to the Werkroom
The newbies to my garden for 2025. Some varieties I've tried before - but they died premature deaths due to me being stupider than an earwig.
Or a slug.
👑 Gitts Attention
👑 Tiny Treasure
Alias: Snip Tease
Each tip has been cut.
🌸 Bloom Type: Informal Decorative
🎨 Colour: Creamy white with fimbriated petal tips
📏 Size: 4.5–5"
📐 Height: 4 ft
Alias: Microphony
Tiny white pompom. Small but screams look at me when displayed.
🌸 Bloom Type: Pompon
🎨 Colour: Coral to bright pink gradient
📏 Size: 2–3"
📐 Height: 2.5–3 ft
👑 Sweet Nathalie
👑 Polka
Alias: Tenderoni
Her gardener still texts her.
🌸 Bloom Type: Formal Decorative
🎨 Colour: Blush pink
📏 Size: 5"
📐 Height: 3–4 ft
Alias: Miss Stretcha Marks
Tells her story in fine lines.
🌸 Bloom Type: Anemone
🎨 Colour: White with red streaks
📏 Size: 3–4"
📐 Height: 3–4 ft
👑 Verrone's Obsidian
👑 Willo's Violet
Alias: Charlotte Webber
Dark. Spindly. Signature move is being creepy.
🌸 Bloom Type: Orchid
🎨 Colour: Jet black
📏 Size: 4–5"
📐 Height: 4 ft
Alias: Bubble Trouble
Gumball sized glam with a pop & a pout.
🌸 Bloom Type: Pompon
🎨 Colour: Violet with pale base
📏 Size: 2"
📐 Height: 3.5 ft
👑 Miss Teagan
👑 Vassio Meggos
Alias: Fluffypuff Petal Pusher
Demure until she opens up to you.
- 🌸 Bloom Type: Semi-Cactus
- 🎨 Colour: Shell pink brushed with lavender and cream
- 📏 Size: 4–6"
- 📐 Height: 4 ft
Alias: Periwinkle Slink
Soft purple. Loud personality. Already writing her memoir.
🌸 Bloom Type: Informal Decorative
🎨 Colour: Lavender pink
📏 Size: 9"
📐 Height: 4.5 ft
👑 Belle of Barmera
👑 Petite Floret (2nd year)
Alias: Showphia Loren
Ten inches of drama.
🌸 Bloom Type: Informal Decorative
🎨 Colour: Peach-centered, coral
raspberry blend
📏 Size: 10+"
📐 Height: 4–5 ft
Alias: Peachy Keener
She’s fresh & flushed. Would like to be called “vintage,” but she’s from 2024 and everyone knows it.
🌸 Bloom Type: Collarette
🎨 Colour: Peach with pink
📏 Size: 4"
📐 Height: 3-4'
NOTE: Grown from seed 2024. 2025 is tuber's first year.
We're still months away from the start of the talent portion. By the end of the season, some of these dahlias will be magnificent. Others will collapse under their own egos. A few will vanish entirely at the beginning of the season, leaving behind only a label and the glitter of slug mucus.
In fact, that was the exact demise of Sweet Nathalie last May. Death by mucus.
Welcome to the start of the 2025 Dahlia Pageant — where the contestants are temperamental, the stakes are literal, and the only guaranteed winner is the slug and earwig population.
I will keep you updated.
Addie
They are all so pretty!!!....GORGEOUS!!! I cannot even pick a favorite. I am usually not a peach flower person but YES!!! to these. A very vintage vibe.
PS......Of course, the idea of just changing the battery on the BBQ was not an option for me. I need the whole new get up. Maybe down the road it will get done....maybe not...a lighter works too.
Karen
If you go to a home improvement store and you happen to see a bunch of ignitors sitting there ready to be bought maybe it'll spark your motivation to do it. Otherwise ya - a lighter works. ~ karen!
Carol Halliwell
I guess I'm lucky with dahlias. I don't have a problem with slugs and last year didn't have any earwigs at all. I have to watch for aphids though. You have some lovely varieties there. I'm going to gitt me a Gitts Attention, I love it!
Karen
At my big garden the only problem is poor soil. But at home it's slugs, bunnies, earwigs ... all the stuff that want to eat t hem. Wish me luck! This is the second time I'm trying Gitt's Attention. Hopefully I actually get to see it bloom. ~ karen!
Kat - the other 1
OMG! I am in love!!!!
With some of these flowers!!!
😍
Omg where's the fainting emoji?!
Was not expecting that! 😮😲😍😍
Need pointy things! Need the fluffs! NEED THE COLORS!!!! 😧😲😍😍😆
Smelling salts!
Get the smelling salts! She's going down! 😆
Karen
That was an entirely appropriate reaction to this post and these flowers. ~ karen!
Helen
So many gorgeous contestants! The winners are ……the Aliases ! Showphia Loren ! Love 💕 all of them !
Randy P
The 'guy' in me is gonna wait for the swimsuit competition among the blooms before I can pick a winner.
Karen
They're all got great stems. ~ karen!
Kim Kelley
Nailed it. Pics SO gorgeous.
Garden life...meh. Can go either way :(
Karen
Every season starts with such hope and then stutters until it reaches a deep level of resignation. ~ karen!
Marie
Thank you for staring my week on a ROCKIN' note of color and joy!
+ + + I understand you have some sort of Amazon info that I can hook to my account (no cost to me). Can you please send it? Unfortunately, I don't buy much stuff but it is one way that I can show my appreciation for all your hard work (and awesome snarkiness!)
xoxo,
M.
Karen
Hi Marie! There is a link on the bottom of every post I send to you. Just scroll to the bottom and you'll see it. If you click on that link at any time to go to Amazon, I will get paid a commission by Amazon at no extra charge to you. ~ karen!
Deb from Maryland
Beeeutiful blooms! I can't wait to see the flower arrangements. Fingers crossed for a slug and earwig drought. :)
Karen
I'm already feeling stressed about planting them. They're so vulnerable to everything the first couple of months. ~ karen!
Charlene B
Went down the dahlia-hole a number of years ago. Sadly it's fueled my gotta-catch-em-all obsessive tendencies. I have space for 130 and now have approx 120 varieties. Every year I try something to refine my process- this year it's playing with Brix levels. The Japanese beetles are my nemisis. Recommend you try to grow Emory Paul. It's not a unicorn variety but the flowers are massive!
Karen
Hi Charlene B! That's an enormous amount of tubers to store! Brix levels like sugar levels? I use refractometers for testing vegetable and fruit sweetness. You want sweet dahlias?! For salads? I feel like I have this all wrong, but kind of want to try to grow sweet dahlias now. ~ karen!
Charlene
Yeah sugar levels. According to what I've read if the sugar content is higher in the plant it makes them less attractive to the chewing and sucking insects. worth a try... Brix levels in the range of 9-12 are supposed to work. We shall see!
Chris W.
I don't think there are any flowers more beautiful than dahlias and the varieties are mind-blowing! Trying to decide which one is prettier than the rest would truly be impossible. Thank you so much for the glorious pictures - just what I needed to see knowing that I have a day ahead of me weeding the leftover junk in the planter that I didn't get to last fall. I seriously don't see how you can manage the gigantic planting space you take such great care of. You are the official Energizer bunny!
Karen
I can't take care of it, lol. My home garden is fine but my vegetable garden is 3/4 disaster. I'll take a photo of it tomorrow. ~ karen!
Carolyn
Wow, there are some truly gorgeous blooms among your choices. I hope they are all successful.
A few years ago my niece grew some that had flowers nearly as big as her toddler's head. I've been enamored with them since.
Karen
The first dahlia I grew when I was in my 20s was that size! I have a photo of it somewhere. I should try to find it. ~ karen!